“We were not aware of the plans.” It is perhaps the most heard statement during the committee meetings of the municipality of Coevorden in recent months. The number of speakers and visitors during the meetings does not lie. Coevorden residents are increasingly speaking out against municipal plans. The common thread? They don’t feel heard.
On a Thursday evening in October, the town hall of Coevorden is very busy. About a hundred residents turned out for the committee meeting in the fortified city. Dozens of chairs need to be added, but even then not everyone has a place.
Several examples show the same pattern: residents discover late, or by chance, that the municipality has plans to change something in their living environment. It often appears that they have received little or no information about this in advance or that there has only been contact with the village council. Where does it go wrong?
According to Kuipers, there has been no participation around the demolition houses in Schoonoord. “People only talked about us, but not with us,” she explains. It was only later that discussions were held with residents about their housing wishes, but according to Kuipers, these conversations came much too late. “They could have invited us much earlier to a meeting in which they presented the plans. They should have included us in the plans. Then we could have participated in the discussions and helped decide.”
More than eight months after the letter, the municipality of Coevorden organized a residents’ meeting this week where residents could give their opinion about the sketches for Schoonoord-Noord, Schoonoord-Zuid and the old sports fields. Kuipers hoped for new plans, but the plans turned out to have hardly changed. “It feels like a psychological game,” said Kuipers.
Miranda Hilvering from Dalen can also discuss the subject. She accidentally discovered the plans for a large gas station on the edge of the village when she was trying to sell her house. Potential buyers asked the municipality about possible developments on the site behind her house on Burgemeester Fonteinstraat.
When it became apparent that there were plans for a gas station, they withdrew. “If we had not seen the drawing at the time, we would not have known anything,” Hilvering says. “We asked the municipality several times if there were any plans, but each time we were told no. This way you lose confidence.”
Initiator Marthijs Wegman later indicated that in retrospect he would have preferred to organize the participation earlier to avoid unrest. Hilvering believes that the municipality should play a more active role in participation: “I understand that the initiator is responsible for participation, but the municipality should check whether this is done properly. Now it seems as if they are abandoning it completely.”