The municipality of Midden-Drenthe is trying to put an end to habitation with a new weapon by labor migrants at the Oranje Vakantstad Oranje. The Northern Netherlands court stopped the municipality on November 17, 2022, but Midden-Drenthe appealed to the Council of State.
Today was a court session in The Hague. The municipality also wants to collect 150,000 euros in fines from the owners of the holiday park, Amresh Bajnath and Ronald.
According to Midden-Drenthe, Bajnath violated and the zoning plan is coming because holiday homes on the Pipodorp can only live on the Pipodorp. The two entrepreneurs received high penalty payments. But they went to court. They were right there in 2022.
The Northern Netherlands District Court had not found anywhere in the zoning plan that the houses should only be used for recreation. So labor migrants are also allowed. Midden-Drenthe wants the Council of State to put a line through this judgment.
Only families are allowed in, or groups that look like that, is the new defense of the municipality. Lawyer Rob Wertheim says it like this: “The holiday homes may only be inhabited by a household that the main residence has elsewhere”. This is how it is in the zoning plan. Since duos or groups of labor migrants who now live there are not households, they have to get out, the municipality says.
According to the municipality, it is not a new argument. The Northern Netherlands District Court should have seen in 2022 that Midden-Drenthe also meant that the lawyer believes. But the court only looked at recreation. Because on that track the municipality had clearly sat down and not on something else.
“Why don’t you start again?, Asked Nanda Scholten of the Council of State, who has to decide on the case. A new start means that the city council writes more clearly in the zoning plan that the Orange is only intended for recreationists. That is a time-consuming procedure, especially if there are objections. Midden-Drenthe hopes for faster help from the Council of State.