Houseboat owners of the Waarderhaven are tired of their gardens sagging on the waterfront. Since the redesign in 2016, the ground in the gardens has been constantly subsiding, which is why the residents have started raising the ground themselves in recent years. A tough job and they are now done with it. “You can keep taking out your tiles and dumping sand, because it sinks further every year,” says a man, who has lived in the port for more than ten years.
Before the redesign in 2016, the gardens adjacent to the houseboats consisted partly of water. This has been muted, giving most houseboat owners a larger garden. The land is owned by the municipality of Haarlem and the residents pay the municipality for the use of the land lease.
The ground of the part that has been filled in will sink a few centimeters per year. This causes the tiles to sag and dangerous situations can arise. “I’ve sometimes fallen 30 centimeters,” says Frans van Woensel, owner of a houseboat. He has fenced off part of his garden with flower pots to prevent anyone from stepping on the sagging part.
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Many tiles in the gardens of the Waarderhaven are skewed, especially on the side of the sheet pile. – NH News
His neighbour, who prefers to remain anonymous, has also raised his garden several times with sand. He is tired of the garden being crooked. “We have bought a beautiful new houseboat and we would also like to tackle the garden. But that makes no sense.” A few houseboats away, the garden is so crooked that the residents can barely sit there.
According to Van Woensel, the subsidence is because the contractor of the redevelopment has used the wrong soil. “It was still full of shrubs and roots. I pulled them out myself because I was afraid that otherwise it would grow right through my terrace.”
Dissolve
The problems with the subsided ground are known to the municipality of Haarlem. He wants to invest 838,000 euros in, among other things, a drainage under the gardens, placing a soil-resistant cloth behind the sheet pile wall and filling the ground with sand in order to remedy the subsidence.
Part of the money will also be spent on repairing the pavement, sheds, fences and the laying of cables and pipes between the houseboats and the quay. The city council will decide on May 12 whether it agrees with the proposed amount. The municipality does expect that the soil in the gardens will have to be raised again in a few years.
The residents are happy with the proposed decision by the municipality, but are still unsure whether it will all work out. Frans van Woensel: “Do I have faith that it will be okay? I just hope so.”
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