How a pipistrelle bat cost a Rotterdam writer’s house

taketonews

The sun is shining in the Rotterdam Schiehaven. Director Wim Pijbes of the Droom en Daad foundation walks over the construction site in reinforced boots and a white helmet. Specialized construction workers are working on the renovation of a monumental ferry house. Eighties music blares from the construction radio, occasionally interrupted by the screeching sound of a miter saw.

Anyone who often renovates monuments knows: under every stone and behind every plank there can be a gigantic and project-threatening problem. Yet this time it was not the monument legislation, the specialist type of paint or the aesthetics committee that gave Pijbes sleepless nights, but the presence of one normal pipistrelle.

Droom en Daad director Wim Pijbes

In his work boots, Pijbes climbs onto a dump container to pull a black brush out of the facade. “Almost 2,000 of these have been placed. An ecologist has been sweet for a few days. They were in every crack and under every roof tile. Madness if you ask me – I think we will see those things even after completion.”

After years of vacancy, the Veerhuis had become a ruin, but soon it must become a walk-in house where everyone is welcome who wants to do something with writing in one way or another. The renovation should have been finished long ago, but because of that one bat, work has been halted for at least a year. Pijbes estimates the extra costs at around 100,000 euros. “It’s not just for ecologists. But also the extra meetings, the materials, the time in which we had to secure the house. You name it.”

Thorough ecological research

The Council of State recently ruled that before they are allowed to carry out work on their facade, homeowners must first carry out a thorough ecological investigation into the presence of bats. A camera investigation is not enough. The ruling was seen as a victory for conservationists and ecologists, who see facade insulation as the greatest threat to the bat population in the Netherlands.

Read also: About the Droom en Daad foundation: In the footsteps of the benefactor with 800 million

But not everyone is equally enthusiastic. With the experience of the bat in the Veerhuis, Pijbes draws a different conclusion. “There are so many laws, regulations and agencies to take into account. I also did the renovation of the Rijksmuseum, but this house really beats everything. The relationship is really lost here.”

More than a hundred years ago, the people of Rotterdam commuted from the RDM harbour, where the house is located, to Kortenoord, on the other side of the Nieuwe Maas. In recent decades, the house has been empty and it has started to rot. The timber frame was visible, and the pale drifting stone of the walls showed large holes. Droom en Daad, the foundation with which the wealthy Van der Vorm family in Rotterdam undertakes social projects, purchased the ferry house in 2021.

Until recently, the house was on the municipal demolition list. When Droom en Daad indicated in 2017 that it wanted to build a public writing facility on that spot, a historical foundation stipulated that the building should not be demolished but restored.

Before work could start, an ecological study had to be carried out. “That investigation is required by law, and we naturally adhere to that,” says Pijbes. And that’s where the trouble started. The ecological survey showed that a common pipistrelle bat has been in the dilapidated feather house – the most common bat species in the Netherlands.

And as soon as the presence of such a bat is established, every project developer knows: this takes a lot of time. First, so-called ‘mitigating measures’ must be taken. So new places to stay must be arranged so that the bat can live elsewhere. Actively chasing away the bat is not allowed, the animal must find another home on its own initiative.

“Look there.” Pijbes points to a corner of the construction site, where a scaffolding with bat boxes hangs. “We had to hang those cupboards, while there are also trees in the area.” Pijbes looks at it somewhat disparagingly. “I don’t know if a bat ever got in there – if I were a bat I’d rather sit in that tree.”

And then the waiting began. Due to the breeding season and hibernation, in which bats have different places to stay, it can only be determined after seven months to a year whether the bat has actually left. After a few months the ecologist came back. All holes in the dilapidated house were checked by the ecologist and provided with the black brushes. Also came exclusion flapsspecial hatches through which a bat can go outside, but not come back in.


While the work could not start, the structural condition of the Veerhuis was rapidly deteriorating. The site was hit by a rat infestation, the building was broken into twice by intruders and a February storm damaged the roof.

Pijbes shows photos of the storm damage. “We have been lucky. Because it has no value, the property could not be insured. If something or someone had been hit by a flying roof tile, we would have been liable.”

After a few months, the ecologist was able to determine that the bat was no longer there, after which the renovation could finally start. The building is now under scaffolding and has been cordoned off.

Pijbes emphasizes several times that he has nothing against bats and nature conservation, but that he thinks that the nature legislation regarding bats has overshot its mark. “We want to keep a monument here, and that is frustrated and held up by nature legislation. When you see what all that research and all the measures have cost in terms of time, work and money – without knowing whether that bat has ever returned at all.”

“I am very much in favor of nature conservation, but that must be in proportion. And when I see here that we are trying to save one specimen of the most common bat with all these costs and effort, then I think: this is disproportionate. Penny wise, pound foolish.”

Species management plan

The solution may already be available at the province of Utrecht: the species management plan, or SMP for short. According to this working method, it is not the citizens, but the municipalities that apply for an exemption from the province if they want to insulate or renovate – which everyone in the municipality can use.

The species management plan is seen as a promising solution. So much so that the highest administrative court even mentioned the SMP by name in its judgment.

An accelerated version of the SMP can even be used under a number of conditions. If the municipality takes action to map out all the habitats of bat colonies on a large scale, an exemption can already be issued for certain parts of the municipality, so that insulation or renovation can start there.

More about SMP: county plan offers hope for bats and homeowners alike

Interest in the policy plans behind the SMP has increased sharply since the ruling. In the province of Utrecht, which has been working according to this method for six years, the responsible officials are inundated with questions. In order to be able to answer everything, coordinator Wendy van Poppel organized an online walk-in consultation hour for her colleagues at other provinces. With success: four provinces want to introduce the method before the end of this year, others are thinking about it. “I also receive many calls from municipalities all over the country that are ready to start,” says Van Poppel.

The cabinet recently made 44 million euros available to provinces, so that they can put the species management plans into practice. If this had happened earlier, the Veerhuis could have been renovated much earlier under an exemption that applies throughout Rotterdam.

environmental code

Although it is a practical solution, Pijbes still wants to address a more general and larger problem. “You can see it in this project: there is a lot of legislation and regulations in the Netherlands. And that has not, as politicians say, become much less in recent years – but rather more complex and fine-grained. It also contradicts each other more and more. In current practice, you often solve this by choosing the most favorable law for you, and explaining it well.”

Pijbes sees potential problems, especially in the introduction of the Environment and Planning Act, in which Dutch laws and regulations on spatial planning are bundled. Where a decision can now be justified with a specific law, this is no longer possible with the introduction of the Environment and Planning Act, he fears. “Then everything clicked together. I really foresee that the Environmental Act will give rise to all kinds of paradoxical problems of partial laws that contradict each other. And that only makes building more difficult. If you have a monumental building that needs to be renovated and a bat is found: congratulations and good luck.”

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