Dick Janssen and Paul van Bussel were allowed by the municipality of Groningen as tenants to sign a false declaration of ownership in a subsidy application for a solar roof. Together they would sort this out legally afterwards.
According to the municipality, this permission to falsely declare that they are the owner of the property is nowhere in black and white. That is because, according to Groningen, the green light for it has only been ‘verbally promised’. The conversations between the tenant and the municipality about the solar roof ‘have not always been recorded’.
This is evident from the answers that VVD mayor Koen Schuiling of Groningen gives on behalf of the council to questions from the CDA council party. They put it up a month ago in response to DvhN articles about the solar roof soap at the Zeefgebouw on the Suikerterrein.
Vastgoedman Janssen and architect Van Bussel are the tenants of the former site of the Sugar Factory through EST bv. In 2018 they declared with their signatures that the Zeefgebouw was their property. Solar project developer Soleila, with whom EST made the plan for a solar roof, therefore believed that they were the legal owner. But that building belongs to the municipality. On the basis of their signed application, a government agency awarded a maximum subsidy for the solar power to be generated of 352,000 euros to the EST/Soleila plan. The municipality later did not agree with the plan signed by the tenants, which had a longer term than the current lease contract of Janssen and Van Bussel.
First, according to the municipality, the Rijksdienst was wrong, and now?
Last month, the municipality reported in a formal response that the ‘Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO) has not properly assessed this. We as a municipality have not given written approval. Yet RVO has it.’
Schuiling now writes to the CDA: “In our opinion, oral permission from us as owner was sufficient in this phase. The further intention was to arrange this legally by agreement afterwards.” However, in his answer to the CDA, the mayor must admit that there are no records of ‘many conversations with the Suikerterrein tenant’.
‘As far as we are concerned, no forgery’
The Board believes that in a ‘general sense’ it is the case that if you falsely declare in a subsidy application that you own a building, this is drawing up a document with a proof destination. Criminal law experts from the University of Groningen therefore considered the tenant’s conduct to be a form of forgery. The mayor disagrees. “As far as we are concerned, there is no question of forgery, because the municipality has (verbally) given permission for the submission.”
At the time that Janssen and Van Bussel provided the application with false declarations of ownership, the RVO had tightened up the rules and controls on this. This is to prevent abuse of and resale of subsidies. There was also a so-called zero-tolerance -policy’. Anyone who knowingly provides or withholds false information will be dealt with.
The RVO withdrew the subsidy to EST/Soleila in 2020. The municipality had meanwhile informed the Central Government Agency that it is the owner of the building and that the RVO had therefore awarded the subsidy on incorrect grounds.
Council member Etkin Armut of the CDA Groningen is ‘dissatisfied’ about the answer given by the council. She requests a debate on the matter
CDA: College creates an increasingly cloudy picture
Armut finds wry how these answers are at odds with the municipality’s earlier statement. “The Board is creating an increasingly cloudy picture of this issue. Initially, the municipality denied knowing about the subsidy application and it was even argued that the tenant should have known better. Now the Board writes that it was informed from the start and that it gave oral permission for the application.”