The two owners of the former football club site of Annerveenschekanaal must still receive a subsidy of 27,500 euros. Hanke Bruins Slot, the Minister of the Interior, must ensure that by order of the Council of State.
The owners had renovated the former clubhouse to accommodate and accommodate four asylum seekers. But when the clubhouse was ready, it turned out that the intended asylum seekers had already been housed elsewhere. Other asylum seekers were not allowed in because Aa and Hunze did not want or were allowed to place more asylum seekers within the municipality.
The renovation cost the initiators 65,000 euros, the ministry would grant 37,000 euros in subsidy from the pot for housing for asylum seekers. The minister refused to pay out the subsidy because in the end no asylum seekers came to live in the clubhouse.
The Council of State finds it unreasonable to let only the initiators bear the financial burden. The two had no influence whatsoever on the placement policy for asylum seekers, according to the highest administrative court. Subsidies provider RVO (Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland) also assumed until the last moment that the asylum seekers would come to the old clubhouse.
“The municipality of Aa en Hunze informed us a few times that we could go ahead with the renovation, because there was a crying shortage of housing for asylum seekers,” said one of the initiators last April during the lawsuit in The Hague. “But when we were ready, we received the message that it was cancelled. Because Aa and Hunze had already placed all assigned status holders just a month before. And the minister was not allowed to do more.”
Due to the ruling of the Council of State, the duo will still get some of their renovation costs back. Incidentally, they now rent out the clubhouse to tourists as a B&B.