Residents of rental properties in Norg, where everything is wrong, will receive 3,000 euros in compensation before the end of this year. Housing corporation Actium announced this last night at a residents’ evening for people in the Oosterveld district. It concerns sixteen households.
Things have been going wrong at the Oosterveld since the delivery in the spring of 2020. There were problems with ventilation and heating of homes. Other residents see the tiles of the bathroom peeling off, while other residents see their house turning green on the outside.
The contractor responsible for the construction of the 16 rental homes went bankrupt a while ago. This makes it more difficult for Actium to quickly find solutions for its residents.
Henk Oostland of tenant platform MEVM has never seen before that so much went wrong in such a short time with new-build homes. He attributes this to, among other things, the fact that the Oosterveld is a test with passive homes. These are homes that are mainly made with reusable materials. “This was the first time that Actium had houses built in this way,” says Oostland. “The contractor indicated at the time that he had experience with this type of housing, while that was not the case in practice. He also had difficulty finding staff.”
This now causes the residents of the houses to face all kinds of problems. “That’s a shame about this trial, because it’s a great project,” says Oostland. “We hear from residents that they are still very satisfied with the type of homes. The construction was only carried out by the wrong party.”
Actium is very disappointed with the problems. “A tenant must be able to live comfortably and that is not the case in the case of these homes,” says communication advisor Hanneke Nijman. “We have recently implemented various improvements in close consultation with these residents.”
The residents will receive a report drawn up by Buro Smit no later than Monday. It describes all the problems and also makes recommendations to solve them. Actium says it will take the recommendations to heart and get to work on them.
Tackling the ventilation of houses has the highest priority. Furthermore, new ‘brick slips’ are being installed on the outside of the houses and window frames still have to be made ‘chill-tight’.
Actium has set March 31, 2023 as the deadline for the implementation of the work. Applying new brick slips can take longer. This depends on the weather.