News item | 20-12-2024 | 5:40 PM
Minister Mona Keijzer of Housing and Spatial Planning will amend the vacancy law to make it more effective. The adjustments are aimed at preventing vacancy as much as possible and keeping the period of vacancy as short as possible. For example, municipalities are more likely to enter into discussions with owners of vacant properties. The municipal nomination of tenants will also be replaced by a mandatory period within which a home must be reoccupied. The adjustments were already used as an experiment in Amsterdam and Utrecht and proved successful there.
The Vacancy Act should also apply to real estate other than homes, such as offices and shops. Municipalities are encouraged to develop proactive policy. From now on, they must indicate in the public housing program what measures they are taking to combat vacancy, for example by implementing a vacancy ordinance or other means. In addition, the minister wants to introduce framework permits, with which landlords such as housing associations can obtain permission in one go for the temporary rental of multiple homes within a project.
Today, Minister Keijzer sent the evaluation of the Vacancy Act and the experiment under the Crisis and Recovery Act in Amsterdam and Utrecht to the House of Representatives. With the adjustments, the minister follows the recommendations of the evaluation carried out by research agency RIGO.
“Vacancy is undesirable,” says Minister Keijzer. “The housing shortage is high and many people are looking for housing. We therefore do everything we can to make the best possible use of existing buildings and homes, in addition to building new homes. By tightening the Vacancy Act, we ensure that houses get a new resident as quickly as possible.”
Vacancy law
The Vacancy Act was developed to tackle vacancy of shops, offices and homes. This law allows municipalities to use a vacancy ordinance to gain insight into and take action against vacancy. If a building is wrongly vacant, a municipality can ask the owner to remove the vacancy or nominate a tenant itself. In addition, in certain cases, owners can also apply to the municipality for a permit for temporary rental on the basis of the Vacancy Act.
The municipalities of Amsterdam and Utrecht conducted an experiment with additional options to tackle vacancy, as part of the evaluation of the law. The results of this are positive. Since its introduction in Amsterdam, 430 homes have already been put back into use.
CBS vacancy monitor
The recently published CBS monitor on vacancy shows that 64,000 homes in the Netherlands have been vacant for more than a year; of these, approximately 12,500 homes can be used. The rest of the homes still use energy or there is a legitimate reason for them being empty. For example, they are waiting for a demolition permit.