Three hundred houses must be built in the Orthen district of Den Bosch within three years, while it normally takes twice as long. The construction project has been designated by the Ministry of the Interior as a pilot project to see how housing construction can be accelerated. “If we can shorten the process by years, this will have positive consequences for the housing market,” says housing councilor Pieter Paul Slikker.
Physically building new houses takes about a year, but the preceding procedures take much more time. This involves determining where and what exactly should be built, with what qualities and under what conditions.
The Ministry of the Interior wants to investigate whether this preparation procedure can be faster. By taking as many steps as possible at the same time, instead of one after the other. This involves calculating, drawing, researching and legally recording. The Orthen-d’n Herp location, the location where social work company Weener XL used to be located in Den Bosch, has been chosen as one of the four national pilot projects.
“As a municipality, we are used to going through the same steps one after the other for every housing project. It has sometimes been suggested that the working method should be changed or made more efficient, but you cannot simply do that,” says Alderman Slikker. “It is nice that the ministry is helping us with knowledge and money to investigate whether and how this is possible.”
“The biggest delays are often in the preliminary stages.”
Normally the process from the drawing board until the residents get the keys to their home takes seven to ten years. This is because municipalities have to comply with many laws and regulations. For example, the quality and location of the houses, noise and traffic nuisance and objections from local residents must be taken into account.
“The biggest delay is often in the preliminary stages. For example, due to a municipal council or environment that does not agree with the design plans. If you go through the steps at the same time and include them in the process, you can certainly speed up a housing project by half,” says Edwin Waelput, architecture teacher at Avans, .
The goal of the municipality of Den Bosch is to build 300 affordable houses in Orthen within a maximum of three to four years. “That still sounds long, but that is the highest achievable. If the process were to become even shorter, we would no longer be able to offer good quality,” says Slikker.
“Due to the housing crisis, we have to build more than ten thousand homes.”
The Den Bosch housing councilor hopes that the municipality can learn from the pilot project. “Due to the housing crisis, we will have to build more than ten thousand homes in Den Bosch over the next ten years. That means about a thousand homes per year. Suppose you can realize such a capacity in a shorter period, then you can meet the demand much faster. of all those home seekers,” says Slikker.
According to engineering teacher Waelput, accelerated new construction is not the solution to the housing problem, but it can help to reduce this problem. “It does create a chain reaction. For example, if new apartments are built faster, this can ensure that elderly people are more likely to make their large single-family home available for home seekers.”
