Rob (46) and Robin (36) open the gate. It is well hidden, between construction fences covered with black cloth. Behind it lies the small hectare on which they live. It is a warm spring day, residents are seeking shelter in Rob’s garden. He shares it with his neighbor, who maintains the many plants. Two dogs lie on a garden bench: a street dog from Morocco and a cross between a mastiff and a boxer.
They sit in the shade of the truck in which Rob lives, a 1971 DAF painted red with ocher yellow. The truck has a modular design; his kitchen unit, cabinets and turntable are clicked onto airplane rails that he installed. Two loft beds form the ‘bedrooms’, one for himself, one for guests. In the evening he can project a film on a screen that he pulls out from behind a cupboard.
Neighbors Danny (36), Tarik (35) and Esmee (36) have joined us in Rob’s garden, as they often do spontaneously. NRC knows their surnames, but they do not want them in the newspaper for privacy reasons.
Residents Rob and Robin in and in front of their car.
Wouter Van Vooren
They ended up here through various means, after all kinds of wanderings. Rob, builder of exhibitions and festivals, lived in 35 places until he was thirty. Then he stopped counting. He came to live here after his relationship ended three years ago. Robin, who is self-employed in healthcare, has always liked living in groups. Danny was standing on a canal with his camper but was looking for more stability. Tarik, an independent entrepreneur in the creative sector, found a place in the group after the lockdown. Esmee, welder and administrative assistant, was looking for a permanent place with her husband.
Everyone has their own story, although the residents emphasize that they are like-minded people. They want to live ecologically. On the grounds you will find stickers against fascism and in favor of alternative music styles. In the summer, some people travel to distant places in a camper or van. Their way of life, off the gridis not always understood, according to residents. It took some time for some family members to get used to it. According to the residents, when they visit the site, skepticism often disappears.
Against fascism, for alternative music
Fifteen of them live on the vacant lot, almost all of them in their thirties or forties. This is tolerated by the municipality of Eindhoven, although it is highly questionable whether it will remain that way. After the summer, the municipality will start tackling the roads around the new campus of chip machine manufacturer ASML, between the A2 and Eindhoven Airport. By doubling the two-lane road next to their site, the collective will lose at least half of the plot. The residents are now looking for a new place.
The collective now lives on a piece of land next to an industrial estate, which borders Eindhoven Airport. Today, residents watch F-35s take off, make a loop and return to the military part of the airport. The deafening roar of the fighter planes makes the ground shake. Four years ago, Eindhoven seized 40 percent of the original plot for the construction of the road to the airport.
The owner of the land on which the collective lives is entrepreneur Rick Hunting, who became a millionaire with a fashion accessories company. He fought for ten years with Eindhoven, which did not grant him a parking lot or business premises on that land and was unwilling to pay enough to buy the plot. Nine years ago, the first residents settled on the vacant lot.
Now the land is worth gold to ASML and the municipality, who celebrated the start of work on the new campus at the beginning of March. The chip machine manufacturer from Veldhoven had previously suggested that the region could lose the fast-growing company if it could not expand there. Ultimately, the so-called Beethoven deal was concluded, in which national and local governments and the business community agreed to invest 2.5 billion euros in public facilities in and around Eindhoven. ASML receives the land from the municipality on a leasehold basis.
The current residents heard at an information evening at the end of November that their land would be given a new purpose. Before the municipal council approved the environmental plan for the ASML campus last March, Rob was a speaker at a council meeting. The residents understand that ASML is going to expand, he said. But until the land is expropriated or sold, they live in uncertainty. They believe that the municipality should also facilitate their way of life. They only have one wish: a legalized piece of land. “A place where I can be myself,” as Rob says.
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Wouter Van Vooren
White willows and weeping willows
Rob and Robin show how they now use the vacant land during a tour. There, they point out, is the car of a former resident. It can stay for a while, because that man previously provided the largely paved area with butterfly bushes, white willows and weeping willows. The vegetables that they grow in their vegetable garden and greenhouse, such as pole beans, broccoli and garlic, are grown in containers or pots. The ground underneath has become heavily contaminated by kerosene tanks that the defense force used to have there. They would prefer to use toilets with a purifying helophyte filter, but this is not possible due to the pollution. There are mobile toilets.
Rob and Robin walk into a tent, next to some garden furniture and a bathtub that serves as a jacuzzi. The tent now has the rusty front of an old Mercedes, converted into a DJ booth that they use at events. There are more “projects”, as Rob calls them. Every month, residents hold a ‘people’s kitchen’ in the tent, where everyone is welcome. Then there are long tables and, for example, soup is served made from pumpkins from the greenhouse. And last September, the residents organized a market with up to thirty stalls, including homemade paintings, jewelry and clothing suitable for reuse.
Although they live behind fences covered in black cloth, residents say they like to give something back to their environment. Market and community kitchen are examples of this, as is the white community cupboard at the entrance. It is a ‘plant library’, filled with cuttings and books. Employees from the adjacent business park regularly take a look at it when they take their lunch walk. At the gate there is a sign with two rules: “be kind” and “private is private”.
Wouter Van Vooren
The simple lifestyle of the housing collective contrasts with the explosive growth in the Brainport region around Eindhoven. With ASML as figurehead, it has grown into one of the most prosperous in the Netherlands. Partly due to the expansion of the chip machine maker, the municipality expects 35,000 additional jobs in the next fifteen years. About 40,000 homes must be built during that period.
Local politicians now warn that the focus on high-tech and rapid growth should not lead to less promising groups of residents disappearing from view. For Mayor Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Silicon Valley, the tech region around San Francisco, is a nightmare. There, unbridled growth has led to extreme inequality, unaffordable housing and social division.
Last year, the Eindhoven city council expressed support for initiatives such as the housing collective. The council adopted a motion asking for financial help and a municipal ‘contact point’, and to learn from how other municipalities have accommodated illegally settled groups of residents. Legalized housing for them should be possible in a growing city like Eindhoven, residents believe. They have now reported to the municipality, but have not yet received a response.
