Finding another location is not an easy option in the fully built Haarlem. “As if these types of land are just fallow in the city,” sombert Tineke van Pel. “I can’t just move to the Waarderpolder. Then I have lost all my customers. And I have no money to start a whole new company. I already have a company.”
The roof on?
Responsible alderman Floor Roduner has announced that the garden center may be on the roof of the planned parking garage. Or on the ground floor in the building itself. Tineke has doubts: “This site is 2,000 square meters in size. I really need the large greenhouse. If that were to succeed, it would be huge investment again. You know: I know everything about plants, but not of this kind of logistical problems.”
Van Pel thinks it is a bit bitter that the permaculture garden can stay a little further in the new building. Food is grown in a nature -friendly way in that garden. “It came to sit there ten years ago, as a temporary interpretation of the area. It is run by volunteers. It is a very nice project and I wish them the best. But it hurts that a flourishing company has to leave here. And we have been there for so long!”
With a deep sigh, Van Pel concludes: “I want to know where I stand now. Am I going to invest in my company? I need someone else in the team, but what can I promise someone like that? I actually know nothing, except that it will probably end here in 2029.”