About 3,000 households around Schiphol will soon receive financial compensation for noise pollution they suffered in 2017, 2018 and 2019. This means that the ministry is doing well financially, because a total of 4,600 households were entitled to compensation, but one in three households did not apply for compensation.
This concerns residents of addresses in Aalsmeer, Uithoorn, Amstelveen and Haarlemmermeer where noise standards were exceeded between November 2017 and October 2019.
During that period, flying took place according to new rules, but these had not yet been laid down in law. Local residents then went to court, after which an independent committee ruled that they were entitled to compensation.
In April this year the ministry announced that around 4,600 households could apply for compensation until July 31. It turns out that two-thirds took advantage of that option the NOS asked the ministry about this.
Previously, representative of Uithoornaars Mirella Visser said that the compensation feels double, because it has been established for a long time that local residents should have received compensation. “We are happy that there is now recognition and that we are no longer crying in the desert, but we are also angry that it has taken so long,” she told NH at the time.
Most households receive an amount that varies between 50 and 2,200 euros, but there are also exceptions. “I also know of people who receive more than 2,200 euros,” Jan Boomhouwer of the Right to Protection against Aircraft Nuisance Foundation told NOS.
The ministry will pay out a total of 5.5 million euros at the end of this month and the beginning of next month. That amount may increase slightly because the ministry still has to assess approximately three hundred applications. 2,200 households that submitted the application will receive nothing; they receive nothing because they live in an area whose residents are not eligible for compensation.
Lamentation Aalsmeer
The fact that not all households in Schiphol’s neighboring municipalities are eligible for the compensation was a sore point for Aalsmeer. That municipality pointed out in the spring that the compensation ‘created an inequality between residents’: the fact that only residents who live near a so-called enforcement point are entitled to compensation is unjust, the municipal council complained.
According to Aalsmeer, an unfair distinction is also made between households that are eligible for compensation. “By also linking the compensation to the WOZ value of the homes, the strange situation arises that residents of a well-insulated spacious villa are compensated more than residents of a social rental home.”