Residents around the former ING bank on Jan Fabriciusstraat in Assen are angry, even in shock. The announcement that there will be a youth center in the vacant bank building has fallen raw on the roof.
Three local residents expressed their anger and frustration in the Asser city council tonight. “Just suddenly a municipal letter crashed on the bus on Friday. We knew nothing, but will soon be in the misery.”
Especially that they have been kept completely out of the process, while there have been conversations with young people for months, she is ugly. Only when young people and other stakeholders chose the ING bank as the best location did they receive a letter.
Resident Zwaantje van Goor is terrified that her night’s sleep is being disturbed considerably. “The youth center will be open until midnight. When the youth leaves there, they will not do that in silence. I don’t feel like lying awake.”
They find the place in their residential area unsuitable. For a long time there has been a nuisance from hanging youth in a playground, where drinks are drunk, drugs are used and loud music sounds. “Hundreds of meters away, on the Havenkwartier, there is plenty of place. There is a lot of empty and you are no one to be a burden,” says Van Goor.
Resident Jan Blaauw has just bought a house there, with the bedroom downstairs and with his back garden adjacent to the former bank complex. “I foresee sleepless nights. We would have liked to have had information before, about such a radical change in this living environment. The municipality has an obligation to provide information towards its residents.” If Blaauw had known about the plans earlier, he would not have bought the house. “No matter how beautiful it is.”
The local residents wonder what the arrival of the youth center will soon do with homes around it. Are they worth less? “Now the building still has an office function, can there be a youth center in? And to what extent are there guarantees that there will be no nuisance?”
VVD, PvdA and ChristenUnie understand the care of the local residents, and say they take it seriously. Only immediately going out of nuisance because there are young people, they find unjustly. “I understand that the raw falls on the roof, and that you are shocked. But in the next steps we have to ensure that the fear is taken away. Because participation is still following with residents,” said CU councilor Jerke Setz.
Alderman Jan Broekema (SP) understands the anger about informing late. But according to him that could not be otherwise. Previously openness about the location, the price may have increased from the ING building by the selling party.
“We were only able to inform the residents when there was a decision from the college, and that was taken last week. Carefulness is important, also for the coming period. There is a starting plan, and that is not cast in concrete. Young people have also indicated that they want to take responsibility, in the neighborhood and with the neighborhood.”
According to Broekema, there are still conversations, with walk -in meetings or kitchen table discussions, about appointments that can be made. “We have experience in Kloosterveen. There was a neighborhood too hope against a meeting center. Agreements made agreements about that. That went very well. And nuisance that was there in that neighborhood of youngsters and drug trafficking, which has been resolved.”
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