To remove risk factors, the municipality increased the canon from that moment. The canon for all land was increased by 1.5 percent. This did not just happen: two independent professors were asked to advise on this idea. They now appeared after research, they came up with a lower percentage with which the risks could be limited. But that was taken from the advisory report at the request of the municipality.
This is demonstrated on the basis of 22,000 documents analyzed that the municipality has been made public after various WOO requests. The research writes: “That means that there was probably no good reason to do that 1.5% storage with the canon.”
Shortly after the recommendations of the professors, they emphasized that the one and a half percent of which was discussed was not reasonable and could also do it with a lesser increase. But a municipal agency did not channel that to, for example, the college and the council.
Effect on the Amsterdammer
The increase was introduced to cover administration costs, risk costs, staff and other additional costs. But according to the agency it would cost 15.4 million euros. If you change that, it can already be covered with an increase of 0.15 percent. So that is even lower than the 0.25 to 0.50 percent set by the professors.
One and a half percent may sound like little, but if you grab the average leasehold of an Amsterdam house, it really matters. A third of the Amsterdam households pay this so -called land rent to the municipality. The Amsterdam municipal land had a value of 10 billion euros in 2017. The income of the municipality is therefore considerably growing with such an increase. For an average home with a land value of 100,000 euros, this means about 940 euros per year too much in leasehold costs.
Confidentiality
The municipal office that ordered the professors, according to the many WOO requests, she also gave a secret working method to join what the municipality wanted. And that while the college previously made the requirement to have the professors conduct independent research.
It is not clear whether the college and the council knew all the information when making important decisions. For example, there is an investigation about the protection of home buyers where the adjusted information of the professors is not included by the council. In this way, the hefty increase was agreed in 2016.
A spokesperson for temporary alderman Large Wassink Lang Wassink announces that the investigation was received by the college and will be discussed in the committee meeting on 21 May. Questions about the investigation have also been submitted in the Lower House.