Hoogeveen aims for certainty. The new council has two familiar faces who were also aldermen in the business council, supplemented by three colleagues from the coalition parties. Each party in the coalition thus provides a candidate. The hectic pace of the past must thus be excluded.
The permanent aldermen of the business council are Derk Reneman (non-party) and Jan Zwiers, the latter will continue under the flag of GemeenteBelangen. The other lucky ones are Mark Tuit on behalf of PvdA, Jeroen Westendorp for the ChristenUnie and Roelof Bisschop of the VVD.
Hoogeveen will therefore be working with five aldermen in the coming years. The parties have discussed this extensively in advance. Initially, there were a number of coalition parties that were not quite ready. “We have been able to justify the arrival of an extra alderman,” says Hilma Hooijer, party leader of GemeenteBelangen. “The municipality is being assigned more and more tasks, with extra manpower we can distribute them better.”
The college’s new program is called ‘Together: connecting & improving’. In doing so, the four parties determine the broad outlines that Hoogeveen will be working on over the next four years. The four themes that emerge are housing, sustainability, care and the financial situation of the municipality. Many issues still seem to be open, but that is for a reason, the governing parties say. They want to give substance to this together with the council.
Alderman Zwiers will continue to focus on housing. Hoogeveen wants to build more houses in the coming years. The municipality is therefore mainly looking at the arrival of flexible housing. These are small houses for people who quickly need a place to live. An acceleration team has even been set up to stimulate housing construction. “They will focus on the problem and try to make all projects run faster. A kind of green light for officials to be able to give approval quickly,” says Zwiers.
The parties also want to work on the social side of Hoogeveen. Efforts are being made to combat poverty and the social domain is critically examined. The municipality also wants to focus more on making homes more sustainable and accelerate the energy transition. Mainly because energy prices are going through the roof. An example that is cited is the De Erflanden district. There they are working on a project to convert the houses to hydrogen.
It is not yet clear how the other portfolios will be distributed exactly. It is known, however, that Derk Reneman will continue to do finances. That is the wish of a number of coalition parties. Hoogeveen has recently had to make significant cutbacks to get on top of it financially. Although the municipality is still a long way off, according to the parties involved, things are moving in the right direction under his rule.
The fact that the agreement took a long time has to do with several considerations, says Hooijer. “It took longer, because we want to give a good interpretation. Mistakes were made in the past. It is now important to be careful and I think we succeeded in this way.”
Jeroen Westendorp has been an alderman in Noordenveld for the past four years. It is not yet clear whether he will move to Hoogeveen. Mark Tuit, who has been director of IVN Noord for many years, will stop at ANWB insurer Unigarant, where he started at the beginning of this year.