The owners of the former football club site of Annerveenschekanaal do not want to be left with a noose of tens of thousands of euros after the renovation of the clubhouse. That became apparent today during a lawsuit at the Council of State. After a renovation of the building, they wanted to receive four refugees, but a line was drawn there, as a result of which the owners miss out on tens of thousands of euros.
They therefore want to force the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) to grant a subsidy for housing the four asylum seekers. The owners have converted the purchased site, with an empty canteen and clubhouse, into a place for temporary housing for so-called status holders. These are asylum seekers with a residence permit.
In order to be able to pay for the conversion from clubhouse to residential building, they applied for a subsidy from the RVO, which had been set up especially for these types of cases. The intention of the subsidy was to make vacant buildings temporarily suitable for residence by status holders and thus to relieve the pressure on the Dutch social housing market.
All signals to receive that subsidy were green, said one of the owners. “The municipality of Aa en Hunze informed us a few times ago that we could go ahead with the renovation. Because there was a crying shortage of housing for asylum seekers. In 2018, there were 5,000 waiting for a home. In Ter Apel, 50 kilometers away, they didn’t know where to accommodate the refugees. The renovation cost us 65,000 euros and we would receive 37,000 euros in subsidy from the RVO.”
When they had finished the renovation, the duo was told that the subsidy was not going ahead. “Because Aa and Hunze had already placed all assigned status holders just a month before. And the minister was not allowed to add more to Aa and Hunze. Because every municipality receives a quota, regardless of whether they have space or not. around us there were hundreds of status holders who had nowhere to go, but those were other municipalities, so they were not allowed to come to us.”
In addition to the subsidy, the two owners also get behind the net with regard to the rental income that new residents would provide. “We have lost a lot of confidence in the government. We adhere to all the rules in the subsidy scheme, but we still miss out on something about which we had nothing to say at all. That Aa and Hunze were suddenly on the refugee quota, we couldn’t do anything about that. We had already invested heavily. We wanted to do something good for society, but were hit by the bureaucratic stocking. We really didn’t want to get rich from it, but we don’t want to be completely empty either. “
The Council of State showed understanding for the owners’ situation. After all, the Council had serious doubts about the RVO subsidy scheme, which can be refused in retrospect and in which all disadvantages end up on the citizen’s plate. Even the spokesperson for the Minister of the Interior, who is responsible for this RVO case, had to admit that the old subsidy scheme was not very clear. But she still felt that the owners should and should have known that they could fish behind the net.
There is now a new subsidy scheme, whereby the subsidy is granted in advance for the renovation and is linked to the allocation of status holders. “With the current scheme, we would certainly have received that subsidy and residents,” the duo says. The owners have asked the municipality of Aa en Hunze for a permanent residential or recreational destination for a Bed & Breakfast. “It is outrageous, but we still have no response after months. The municipality is no longer heard from.”
The Council of State will investigate whether the minister still has to pay out the subsidy amount. A verdict will follow in a few weeks.