‘By the end of 2022 it should be clear for each region how many homes will be added each year over the next ten years. Including what type of housing, in which segment and in which locations’, writes Minister Hugo de Jonge for Housing in his housing plans presented on Friday. The goal is still: 100 thousand new homes per year, although that number will only be achieved from 2024.
It is certain that two-thirds of the new homes to be built must be affordable for people with a low or middle income. Of the 900 thousand homes that are planned to be built up to and including 2030, 600 thousand will have to fall into the ‘affordable’ category. This concerns 350 thousand homes in the middle segment (both rental and purchase) and 250 thousand social rental homes.
The majority will be built in one of the fifteen sites designated for large-scale housing, spread over seven regions. Large-scale construction will take place at three locations in both the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area and the Southern Randstad conurbation. In Groningen and Assen, large construction projects will be carried out on the sugar union site and in the city ports. The regions of Zwolle, Arnhem, Nijmegen, Utrecht, Amersfoort and Urban Brabant will also have large housing locations.
Trend breaking
The housing plans of the Minister for Housing are an elaboration of one of the biggest promises from the coalition agreement of the Rutte IV cabinet: ‘an affordable home for everyone, whether you buy or rent’. Shortly after taking office, Minister De Jonge already said that he would like to take ‘a coordinating role’ in the coming years in order to bring the runaway housing market under control. ‘For far too long it was thought that the market would find a solution.’
While the government has become less and less involved in the housing market over the past twenty years, assuming that the provinces and market parties could arrange this themselves, more and more house hunters were ‘missed’, De Jonge now analyzes. When the Rutte I cabinet took office in 2010, the Ministry of Housing was even abolished.
Minister De Jonge’s new housing plans make it clear that the central government wants to take back control. ‘The law of the fittest’ now applies to the housing market. The ‘national housing and construction agenda’ must change this. De Jonge: ‘Public housing is back, as a core task of the government.’
Faster housing
According to De Jonge, additional housing construction should not only increase the housing supply, but also faster construction. Building a house now takes an average of seven years, of which two years are construction time; the other five years are spent on procedures. ‘We are going to speed up the lead time of the process’, promises De Jonge.
To this end, for example, more manpower is being deployed at the government to pull stalled construction projects out of the doldrums. In addition, the Council of State will be given more capacity to prevent delays as a result of appeal procedures as much as possible. The minister also sees great benefit in accelerating the construction time by encouraging the standardization of homes and factory construction.
Not optional
Minister De Jonge acknowledges that the measures will not lead to affordable shelter for everyone in the short term. ‘There is no quick fix’ and he ‘cannot do magic’, he has warned since he took office as Minister for Housing. He will, however, ‘do everything in his power’ to ensure that more will be built.
The key question is: what happens if housing associations and private project developers do not keep to all agreements? Does he have a stick to hit with? He can put pressure on housing associations by linking the abolition of the landlord levy to agreements on additional housing construction. Corporations will therefore have to pay more tax if they do not come up with more homes, threatens De Jonge.
The minister does not yet have any real means of coercion. That is why the ‘legal instruments are being tightened’, he says. This autumn, the minister will present a new ‘public housing bill’ through which he hopes to gain ‘more perseverance’. As far as De Jonge is concerned, the performance agreements with provinces, municipalities, housing associations and market parties will be ‘not without obligation’.