Over the next five years, 27,000 homes will be added in the Eindhoven region. Of these, 15,000 will be constructed in the city, including 1,000 temporary residential units this year.
The central government, the province and the regional municipalities within the Urban Area Eindhoven (SGE) have agreed on this deal. Minister Kasja Ollongren was in Eindhoven to sign the deal together with Eindhoven City Councillor, Yasin Torunoglu, and Provincial Government Administrator, Erik van Merrienboer, on Thursday.
According to the parties involved, the need is quite high as there is a the current housing shortage. “Eindhoven is attractive for expats, labour migrants, students, and ‘starters’. These new residents all want a nice place to live,” says Torunoglu. Merrienboer also endorsed the necessity. “With the growth of, for example, chip machine manufacturer ASML, the pressure on the housing market is high. Significantly higher than at other places in Brabant.
This is why Minister Ollongren did not only visit Eindhoven. She also indicated that Eindhoven is one of the places in the Netherlands where they need to speed up action. In addition to the Eindhoven region, with the help of the government, there will also be a building spree in Groningen, Rotterdam-The Hague, Amsterdam, and Utrecht. “There is pressure on the housing market. We will do something about this with a package of measures.’
‘We can certainly succeed’
Along with building temporary housing units, this package also includes accelerating the rate of construction, relaxing construction rules to, and looking for innovative ways of building. Ollongren: ‘It is not easy at this time to speed up the rate of construction, with a substantial construction output and rising costs. But by working together and making the process easier, we can certainly succeed.”
Councillor Torunoglu also expects that new ways of building can contribute. “Think of 3D-printed houses, which we want to use here. But we also need to look for ways in which people can start building more themselves.”
Moreover, the parties have made agreements about middle-class rental housing. For example, the Minister is working on an ’emergency basis’ that offers municipalities the opportunity to limit the rent in the free sector. Corporations should also have more opportunities to build houses for the middle-income segment.
The new homes in Eindhoven will be partly on the north side of the station. The city centre must also further densify, with more residential towers. It was already indicated earlier that temporary housing units will be added to Castiliëlaan in the north of the city. There was previously an asylum centre there, soon there will be houses built for students.
The national government is supporting this housing deal with an amount of EUR750,000.
Source: www.studio040.nl
Translated by: Chaitali Sengupta
Edited by: Melinda Walraven
