Karin Bruers has a dream. The Tilburg comedian and entrepreneur wants to build the first hotel and restaurant without nitrogen emissions, but construction has been at a standstill for months. Her neighbors are disturbing. Catering icons Jan and Monique Meurs conducted a lawsuit and, according to Bruers, did everything they could to stop her. But the Meursen are not aware of any harm: “We like it when someone comes next to us, but she also has to abide by the rules.”
The construction site of Karin Bruers is located in the beautiful surroundings of the Oisterwijk forests and fens. Large wooden panels, covered by plastic. The fact that construction has now come to a standstill drives Bruers to despair. The comedian, normally rebellious and combative, is in tears: “Please, let me keep building. I have bills to pay, because I don’t get a loan either.”
“The system is so sick.”
Bruers feels unfairly treated by the government: “A farmer here less than five kilometers away is allowed to add eight thousand cattle. And I will be fined 50,000 euros if I leave three trucks on my property. I literally choke on nitrogen. The system is so sick.”
It all started so beautifully. Bruers sold the monumental Duvelhok in the center of Tilburg for a nice sum of money. “Together with my daughters, I thought: that money should go back to society. We wanted to build a hotel and a vegan restaurant. But completely sustainable. Second-hand bricks, wooden skeleton, solar panels, heat pump, no animal suffering: the ideal world.”
“Our lawsuit was not against Karin, because she is a very good person in her own right.”
The municipality of Oisterwijk was also enthusiastic about Bruers’ plans and granted her a permit. But the neighbors disagreed. They are Jan and Monique Meurs, who grew up with supermarket Lekker en Laag. They have Ome Jan right next to Bruers brasserie.
Monique Meurs says: “It was not according to the zoning plan, so we filed a lawsuit against the municipality. Not to Karin, not at all, because Karin is a very good person in itself.”
The judge ruled that construction had to be stopped immediately, because the nitrogen permit was not in order. Bruers: “That was really sour. Because if Meurs didn’t run for a weekend, I would have all the nitrogen I need to be able to build. What are we talking about?”
“Sint Jan was also built without nitrogen.”
But Bruers came up with a ruse: she would build the first hotel and restaurant without nitrogen emissions: “Digging with a shovel. And with electrical equipment and electric vans. Sint Jan was also built without nitrogen, so why shouldn’t we be able to do that?” She can’t start yet, because she first has to wait for a new permit.
Yet it went wrong. Bruers already had the wooden skeleton of the hotel delivered. “The municipality allowed it, because that is not building.” So a truck came to the site three times to drop off stuff. “But Meurs had filmed it and sent it to the province. Then I received a penalty of 50,000 euros.”
“So now I’m an environmental criminal. But the people who will come and eat with us, don’t eat animals. Polluting cars must park on the outskirts of the village. While there are dozens of polluting cars at Meurs, you can only come to my site with an electric car.”
“She is so ugly about us. I don’t think we deserve that.”
Neighbor Monique Meurs: “What she wants to do is all very noble, but it is not realistic for people to park kilometers away. She just doesn’t play by the rules. If you are going to build without a permit, you can’t get angry with us, can you? We can’t do anything about that, can we?”
After everything that has happened, Bruers has little good to say about neighbor Jan Meurs: “He would rather that I break down and he join, than that it goes well for both of us.”
The Meurs couple are not disappointed by these statements: “That’s just not nice, isn’t it Jan, when you hear such annoying things about you. That’s not how you treat each other. We find this very difficult. She’s so mean to us. I don’t think we deserve that.”
Bruers would like to sit down with her neighbors to talk it out. And that is mutual. Monique: “I have said before: ‘Karin, you mustn’t be so mean to me, you’d much better drink a cup of coffee.”
