Aa en Hunze is having research carried out for all villages in the municipality into the need for new houses. The main aim of the study is to answer the question of what type of housing is needed and where.
The college of mayor and aldermen wants to build 400 new houses between now and 2030 to tackle the housing shortage. Where exactly those houses should be is still a big question mark.
It seems to fit that need. Delegations from the villages of Eext, Eexterveen, Gieterveen and Gasselternijveen came to the committee meeting at town hall tonight with the same fervent wish: municipality, please start building. The need is especially high for starters and the elderly. They threaten to unintentionally have to leave their native village, is the message from the villages.
Eexterveen and Gieterveen joined the two letter-writing villages tonight. Village interests chairman Jan Roelof Vos from Eexterveen wonders why nothing has been heard for more than a year about the construction of eight already promised homes. His colleague Tonny Mulder from Gieterveen, in turn, does not understand why the municipality has rejected what he considers an excellent plan for housing.
The brand new alderman Ivo Bergsma of Municipal Interests acknowledges that the municipality should have been more heard and apologizes for that. “We need to communicate much better, so that initiators of construction projects know where they stand.”
However, the municipality emphasizes that construction is already underway in several places in the municipality. In Gieten, houses will be built in several places in the coming period and houses are also planned in Anloo and Gieterveen. That alone is not nearly enough to achieve the four hundred homes that we dreamed of.
The housing needs survey should be completed in September. The municipality then wants to make a tour of the villages to discuss the results of the survey with residents.