Migrant workers from Poland have helped determine the streetscape of Wijk aan Zee since the 1990s, but due to the construction of luxury apartments on the spot where their guest houses are located, living in the seaside resort is no longer affordable for them. So they leave: back to Poland or looking for a cheap alternative outside the village. What does their departure mean for Wijk aan Zee?
Wijk aan Zee is an ode to predictability: in addition to the grazing horses on the Dorpsweide, the clouds above Tata Steel, the dunes and the rolling waves, there are always the migrant workers who are picked up early in the morning by van and taken to work at the start. be delivered back to the center of the evening. However, this has happened much less often in recent months. “You can see it in the number of parked vans,” says Hans Dellevoet of the Wijk aan Zee village council. “That’s a lot less.”
With several in a room
Of the approximately 2,200 people living in Wijk aan Zee, it is estimated that more than 400 came from Eastern Europe, mostly from Poland. Hans Dellevoet suspects that ‘several hundred’ of them have since left Wijk aan Zee. In the boarding houses where they often lived with several people in one room, the wrecking ball now has the say. The old Hotel Noordzee on the Julianaweg, for many years a transit house for foreign workers, has already been completely dismantled.
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Hans Dellevoet emphasizes that he had no problem with the migrant workers in the village. What he does have difficulty with is ‘the revenue model that was behind it.’ Cheap workers who were squeezed into small rooms at low rents, with impoverishment as a long-term effect. “The Polish people lived here, but didn’t really participate in social life. It was all temporary for them all. As soon as they had some money, they went back to their country. They didn’t really care what their garden looked like, for example Dellevoet says.
New apartments for Wijk aan Zee people
Real estate developer Elfi from Amsterdam has taken over thirteen buildings from the BeN Group. Most were used as boarding houses for migrant workers. There are just over a hundred apartments in its place. Elfi owner Jasper de Rooij wants to preserve as much as possible the authentic details of the buildings, such as the exterior of the former Pension Maria on Julianaplein.
The purchased buildings are intended to be completed in 2025. De Rooij cannot yet give the exact rental prices. When the plans were presented at the beginning of 2021, ‘around 1,100 euros per month’ was mentioned.
Elfi and builder WJ Projects do not think they will be hindered by the nitrogen restrictions, as the construction is ‘prefab’, which means that a minimum number of lorry movements is possible. The apartments are equipped with a heat pump. De Rooij wants to give priority to tenants from the village when distributing the apartments. “About 30 to 40 percent is intended for Wijk aan Zee people.”
Elfi expects great interest in the apartments. According to him, the emissions from Tata Steel, which according to RIVM reports pose a threat to the health of people in the area, have no effect on this. “Tata Steel is becoming more sustainable. It can only get better,” says De Rooij. “People want to live in this beautiful village. Wijk aan Zee has everything: beach, sea, and yes, Tata Steel too.”
Dellevoet is happy with the sale and renovation of the guesthouses to real estate developer Elfi. The converted buildings, which are no longer affordable for the migrant workers, will house people who reside there permanently. “That will provide an impulse in the village,” says Dellevoet. He mentions the primary school and sports clubs as examples of facilities that have come under pressure because there are too few children in the village. Football association SV Wijk had to recruit in Beverwijk for some time to keep teams going.
This is the first part of our report on the departure of Polish labor migrants in Wijk aan Zee. The second and final part will be released later today.
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