State Secretary Van der Burg (Asylum) and Minister De Jonge (Public Housing) report this to the House of Representatives. COA has purchased a hotel in the village of Albergen, just outside Almelo, where it hopes to receive 300 asylum seekers in due course. But the municipality of Tubbergen, which Albergen falls under, did not want to issue a permit to change the zoning plan of the building after consultation with the COA and the Ministry of Justice & Security.
That is why the national government is now taking matters into its own hands. The cabinet still wants to come up with laws with which it can enforce a reception task for municipalities, but is now using existing regulations in the field of spatial planning. This allows the central government to take over the licensing process and sideline the municipality.
It is an ‘exceptional step’, says Van der Burg, but according to him also necessary because of the shortage of reception locations.