The municipality of Haarlemmermeer wants to buy the former Crowne Plaza hotel on the Hoofddorpse Planetbaan in order to house asylum seekers, status holders, young people and students for a longer period of time. The provisional purchase contract has been signed, and aIf the city council also agrees, the building can be converted.
This is evident from the council letter that the college has just released, and is confirmed by a spokesperson. The building has 242 rooms and has not been used as a hotel since 2020. In that year, owner Tidal Operations was declared bankrupt, partly initiated by the corona crisis and the resulting decline in tourism and business travel.
With the purchase of the hotel, the municipality wants to contribute to alleviating the refugee crisis. Due to a lack of available housing, many status holders continue to live in asylum seekers’ centres, and asylum seekers who have registered in Ter Apel, for example, cannot move on to those asylum seekers’ centres.
The municipality has agreed with the COA that this organization will manage the wings or floors with asylum seekers until at least 2027. “We’ll see after that,” said the spokesman. The municipality itself provides housing for other target groups.
Refugees are also received in other places in Haarlemmermeer, for example in the Van der Valk hotel along the A4. Several hundred refugees have been staying here since last summer. In August, the asylum seekers had to make way for a while for conference attendeesand went two weeks ago dozens of asylum seekers on hunger strike out of dissatisfaction with the state of affairs regarding their asylum procedure.
For example, Haarlemmermeer, like all other municipalities, must house status holders every year, for which the hotel can be used. And because many young people and students are still unable to find affordable independent accommodation due to the high house prices and room shortage, the municipality hopes to ease the pressure there too.
The building is not only popular with the municipality because of its location – a five-minute walk from Hoofddorp station. The rooms are also relatively easy to convert into self-contained living spaces. Kitchens will still have to be installed in many rooms.
Right of first purchase
It is not disclosed how deep the municipality is in the pocket for the hotel. Haarlemmermeer does emphasize, however, that it had the right of first purchase, and has made use of it.
The municipality also has this right for other buildings and pieces of land in the station area that are for sale, including the Stationskwartier and Graan for Visch Zuid. “Because we want to develop this area with 15,000 homes,” the spokesperson explains the municipality’s desire to be in the front row when land on real estate is offered.