A monument cannot ‘tell the story of our country’ if it collapsed

How the Wilhelminators in Valkenburg was able to collapse has not yet been clarified. “The subsidy application made by the government for the Wilhelminators in 2022 showed no great overdue maintenance,” said Minister Eppo Bruins (Education, Culture and Science, NSC). There was, however, concrete rot in the viewing platform on the sixth floor. For that reason, the floor would be renovated, but the permit for this was only issued by the municipality of Valkenburg last year. A connection between the concrete rot and the collapse has not yet been demonstrated.

The Wilhelminators, owned by the Geenen family from Valkenburg, is one of the nearly 62,000 national monuments in the Netherlands, ranging from churches, historic country estates and castles to farms, houses and mills. About half of that is not a house. The question is how the condition of these monuments is. Are they safe?

“We know that about 14 percent of all built non-residential housing monuments are in moderate or poor condition in terms of monumental values,” said Minister Bruins. “What does not mean that they are about to collapse. That is more than we find desirable. The percentage has been falling for several years, but there is a bottleneck in particular with large monuments.”

From research by the Ministry It appears that at least 2.2 billion euros is needed in the next ten years to bring those monuments into good condition, and 700 million euros to reduce the percentage of more than 14 percent to 10 percent, as has been a policy goal since the 1990s. But probably the costs are much higher, since the assessment of the national monuments is often done by an external fire. “The costs for, for example, foundation repair, restoring internal building components and interiors are therefore out of the picture. Certainly with large objects this can be considerable amounts,” the researchers write. The total costs for that reason “at least 2.5 billion”.

Frustrations about demolition

The owner of a national monument is responsible for the physical condition of the building. The government supports these owners with subsidies and loans with a low interest rate. Finally, the municipalities must ensure compliance with the so -called Heritage Act. It is not clear whether this always happens carefully. In recent decades, however, more attention has been paid to municipalities for heritage. “There is frustration about the demolition of monuments in the seventies and eighties. Municipalities are increasingly realizing that monumental heritage is valuable and also attracts public,” says Aryan Klein, director-director of the Monumentenwacht Limburg Foundation in Maastricht.

Monument guards advise owners on maintenance and familiarize them with applying for subsidies. But whether municipalities are constantly busy checking their national monuments? “Dare to write to municipalities of owners? And do they have insight into whether there is any overdue maintenance?” Asks Eefje van Duin, director-director of the Monumentenwacht in Drenthe, Flevoland, Friesland and Overijssel and also chairman of the Monuments Maintenance Federation (FIM). “If a monument is deteriorating, it is obvious as a municipality to address the owner, but that is not just as easy everywhere. Municipalities do not always have the capacity for it.”

Inspection

Moreover, the fact that a municipality intervenes does not always remain without consequences. For example, the municipality of Wassenaar is involved in a legal dispute with the owner of the seriously neglected villa House iveckeafter the municipality had incurred costs for the maintenance and told these costs to the owner. “I am very curious what costs the judge will soon consider to be necessary for the maintenance of this national monument,” says Van Duin. “For example, does the judge find a few paint layers necessary or did a blob of it sufficient?”

Another example of active intervention, at the end of last year, was the immediate closure of the library in the seventeenth-century Arsenaal in Coevorden. This after large cracks were found in the building at an inspection by the Monumentenwacht. The municipality has had repair work carried out and is now conducting further investigation.

How should a large church cough up a restoration of 20 million euros if it receives 1 million subsidies?

Church cannot cough up money

Municipalities must therefore monitor compliance with the Heritage Act, but periodic inspections are not mandatory for owners. The owners can, however, subscribe to the Monumentenwacht and have inspections carried out at a reduced rate. Provinces, which carry out the subsidy schemes, also often set an inspection as a condition for eligible for subsidies. But even with subsidies, some restorations cannot be paid. Especially not, says Aryan Klein of the Limburg Monumentenwacht, when a building is empty. “That’s the worst thing that can happen to a monument.”

Lack of income is affecting maintenance and restoration. Eefje van Duin: “Monuments are important for the identity of the Netherlands. They tell the story of our country. But how should a large church, for example, cough up a necessary restoration of 20 million euros if such a church receives 1 million subsidy?”

Every year the Netherlands spends around 200 million euros on heritage and monument care. In addition, just under 600 million euros in loans with a low interest rate are paid. There are also incidental subsidy schemes. But many subsidy schemes are ‘over -questioned’, says Van Duin. There is research into the financial deficits in the maintenance and restoration of national monuments. “Depending on these results, we will point out to politics how much more money should be in the subsidy pots.”

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