Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing and Spatial Planning, CDA) wants to use the Central Government Real Estate Agency to realize housing construction, asylum reception and the generation of sustainable energy, among other things. He announced that on Wednesday morning. The Rijksvastgoedbedrijf (RVB), which owns the land and buildings of the national government, has the country’s largest real estate portfolio with almost 12 million square meters of buildings and almost 2 percent of the total surface area of the Netherlands.
De Jonge expects that up to 71,000 homes can be built near Almere and Lelystad through the use of government land in Flevoland. The government also wants to convert old government buildings that are no longer used, such as prisons and offices, into living space. In recent years, this so-called office transformation has not been going smoothly; in 2022, ten thousand homes will be realized in this way. De Jonge expects government offices to become increasingly available for transformation due to the rise of hybrid working.
The nitrogen crisis, the hot topic in Dutch politics, must also be tackled with the intervention of the cabinet. De Jonge writes that “farmers that are too close to a nature reserve could move to land owned by the government where nitrogen emissions are less of a problem”. To realize such an exchange, the RVB must also make new land purchases so that it has so-called ‘compensation grounds’ for nitrogen emissions.
In fact, all of the above measures have already been implemented, but De Jonge’s plan is an increase in scale of previously implemented initiatives. Housing for vulnerable target groups must also be intensified in accordance with the government’s plans. Ukrainian refugees were already received in government offices last year to relieve the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers.