The festive opening of De Warren housing cooperative in IJburg this afternoon cannot hide the fact that collective housing is in dire straits.
De Warren has also come a long way before the complex on Center Island, built with only wood, is now home to more than fifty people who also pay an attractive rent for it.
Topple
But construction contracts and interest rates date back six years. In the meantime, the business case for the cooperatives is difficult to make and they are on the verge of collapse, or they cannot continue, says Jelle Don of the Amsterdam Housing Cooperatives Platform.
The Platform therefore calls on the municipality to be generous with the incentive fund containing 50 million euros, from which a loan of 50,000 euros is provided per house.
Don: “The problem is that that plan and that amount come from the days when the sun was still shining. Nowadays, with higher interest costs, we no longer have enough with that 50,000 euros.”
The cooperatives want the city to now finance 75,000 euros per home. “Financially, you know, the municipality has great needs, so it is not the case that we can take over that function from the bank,” responds housing alderman Reinier van Dantzig (D66). “We will evaluate how things are going with housing cooperatives to see if there are things that we need to change. But we will do that together with the city council because that is what it is about.”
Van Dantzig says he wants to talk to the banks and also wants to share more know-how with the housing cooperatives.