The quality of life in Amsterdam South, and especially in De Pijp, is under pressure. According to district chairman Bart Vink, this is due to the many terraces in the area. But residents and entrepreneurs think very differently about this. “You have to deal with the person who abuses the terraces, not the entrepreneur.”
“It’s like a poorly maintained amusement park here,” says Marieke Bekirov of the Platform Residents of De Pijp. “We are here on the Gerard Douplein, but where is the square actually?” she says, pointing to parked cars, bike racks, and apparently haphazardly placed planters and posts.
District chairman Bart Vink (D66), spoke in the AT5 program Park Politics about the quality of life in De Pijp, which is under pressure. According to Vink, this is due to the amount of terraces. “We had terraces in all kinds of places with corona and then said: ‘that situation is over’, we are now going to assess it from place to place. And we will be very reserved in this part of South.”
Spatial plan
However, local residents seem to be less bothered by the terraces than Vink thinks. “That gentleman has too little understanding of an entrepreneur. He is just watching, if I do this, it will go away. No, you have to enforce! You have to make sure you deal with the people who don’t behave,” says Rien Becht, who has lived in De Pijp for 35 years.
Another resident understands the city president when it comes to bicycles. “I think this is really a nuisance for visitors and residents.” According to him, something should be done about this, but the terraces, ‘that makes De Pijp unique’.
Horeca entrepreneur Floris Bertram thinks ‘it often happens that people blame someone for a problem’. “Instead of limiting our terrace, reducing turnover and also giving people less space, you have to look elsewhere. That you can find a solution to the bicycle or garbage problem.”
Limiting terrace permits is, according to residents’ representative Bekirov, ‘typically another partial solution’. “Let an agency make a good spatial plan for once,” she says.