Landlord Trudo demolished a complete block of houses in the Jacob van Deventerstraat in Eindhoven to build new houses. They had to leave one house standing: the only owner-occupied house. The house now stands on a huge bare plain with a fence around it. Over the past two years, considerable consultations have been held with the owner to arrive at a solution.
The demolition machines are now gone. Thirty-three homes were knocked down. House thirty-four remained standing. If the house is ever demolished, everything must be taken out of the shed again. “The ideal situation would have been that we could have demolished everything there at once,” says Britt van Keulen of Trudo housing association in Eindhoven.
The corner house was in a row of social housing units. It was purchased in 2007 under Trudo’s ‘Smarter Buying’ scheme. The wrecking ball also spared a small part of the neighbour’s house. This way the owner-occupied home was not accidentally damaged. Trudo had the ground plowed up and a fence came up around the bare plain. A gate that is only interrupted to get to the one house.
Landlord Trudo has been working with the owner of the owner-occupied house for years. “We informed him about the plans two years ago. We immediately started looking for a solution, such as another ‘Smarter Buying’ home or a rental home. Several proposals were submitted to which he could not agree. Or it took a long time to get a response. That took much more time than we had hoped.”
“We have to build houses, so we have to build.”
The housing association did not want to wait any longer. Sixty homes must return to the place where more than thirty homes stood. “There was also a plan B should this gentleman stick to his point of view and not want to sell. Then it was built around the house. That is why demolition has already started. Houses have to be added, so we have to build.”
A solution now appears to be in sight. Housing corporation Trudo buys back the house. The landlord does not want to say for how much money. The owner would leave before June 1. But there is still no signature. Van Keulen: “We are in the final phase. We are convinced that it will work out. If not, we have to take a different path.”
The housing association wants construction to start after the construction holiday. The residents declined to comment.
