Thanks to the necessary creativity, young people in Vledder have managed to find a place in the overstrained housing market. This afternoon they started building their starter homes in their own village.
At half past one the first pile went into the soil of Drenthe. The nine starter homes should be ready in October. Selin Dural is one of the young people who will live there. “Vledder is one of the fastest aging villages in Westerveld. Young people are needed to maintain facilities and keep the village alive. But finding a house is difficult for us. That is why we took up the gauntlet ourselves,” says Dural.
The Westerveld municipality had to get used to the project. “It is of course not common for citizens to do this themselves,” says Dural. “They are now sitting with a project developer or the housing cooperative, but with residents at the table.” Nevertheless, the group of starters did well, there is no question of a knowledge gap. “But we have a good construction manager who supports us in this.”
Harold Dijkgraaf of Vledder village interests supports the group of starters. He calls it a huge challenge and that makes him extra proud. “Everything is overstretched. The housing market, the labor market and raw material prices. Nevertheless, we manage to achieve this in Vledder.”
That required a lot of creativity. The starters had to do a lot of fine-tuning and calculations to keep prices within limits. Solutions were devised in conjunction with the local contractor and architect. “This way a lot of wood is added to the facade,” says Dijkgraaf. “We have agreed that we will put this under a roof at the contractor’s house and that the starters will paint it themselves. That saves thousands of euros.”
Underfloor heating in the bedroom was also deleted and cheaper roof tiles were chosen. “The starters don’t have huge budgets, so we had to be really sharp,” says Dijkgraaf, who sees a lot of enthusiasm for the project in Vledder. Requests for more information come from all over the country.
“We have already provided information”, continues Dijkgraaf, who thinks that this building in Drenthe can change forever. “In this project, we listened carefully to what is going on among the people in the village. Because they did not want to accept that it is aging here, and that is now being anticipated. Where developers and housing cooperatives withdraw, the people themselves have risen. lively, we keep the middle class on the arrow and starters get a home for a normal price.”