At a council meeting at the town hall of Tynaarlo in Vries, dozens of demonstrators held a silent protest against the arrival of a planned asylum seekers’ center. The residents and lot buyers in the new Vries-Zuid district feel cheated.
Just after 7 p.m., about fifty demonstrators gathered in the parking lot of the town hall in Vries. Dressed in white T-shirts with the text ‘Vries says no to this asylum centre’, the group entered the public gallery at the start of the meeting. At that time, no regular council meeting started in the council chamber, but a council meeting on citizen participation attended by a limited number of council members. Mayor Marcel Thijsen briefly entered the room to greet the demonstrators.
Citizens’ Committee
After about thirty minutes, the group of demonstrators left again. “You can also stay,” noted invited speaker Louise Boelens. The council meeting on citizen participation stems from a motion by the Labor Party in Tynaarlo. They want the municipality to investigate whether there are possibilities for a citizens’ forum, a way in which residents can have a say in decisions made by the municipality. The party sees opportunities to use such a citizen forum in the ‘ facelift ‘ that Vries will need in the coming years.
The silent protest is an initiative of the Citizens’ Committee for asylum seekers’ center Vries, a group that opposes the arrival of a new asylum seekers’ center in the village. On January 16, the mayor and aldermen presented the plans for what the municipality calls a Housing for Asylum Seekers (WVA), a residential area with room for 250 asylum seekers on the Taarloseweg. This should replace the temporary reception locations in the municipality.
New construction district Vries-Zuid
Tuesday evening’s meeting was deliberately chosen. “The subject of citizen participation is now on the agenda, but the municipality has failed enormously in this regard,” says a demonstrator who does not want his name in the newspaper. “Local residents are not involved in the development of the plans. The information we do receive actually only raises more questions.”
Some of the opponents of the WVA are buyers of a plot in the new Vries-Zuid district. While handing out the shirts in the parking lot, some of them discuss the state of affairs. Several buyers are considering legal action. They believe that the municipality was unfair in stating that the new residential area was not in the picture as a location for the WVA. In practice, the WVA is about 100 meters away. This means that their newly purchased plots have become less valuable, say several people present.