If youth worker Rino Driessen does not go to court on Wednesday, he may remain in Bavel with his day care Ariba for another six months. If not, he must leave immediately. It is the next chapter in a struggle that has been going on for years.
Rino Driessen has had to whine about it for years, almost begging. But on Friday it suddenly happened. He was allowed to tell the alderman why his day care for young people with a mild intellectual disability should remain in Bavel. Alderman Tim of the Court listened to him and made a proposal. If Rino drops the lawsuit on Wednesday, he does not have to leave immediately but six months later at the Woestenbergseweg.
“This councilor is a great guy with his heart in the right place, but I’m not going to do it.”
Rino rents the location from the municipality of Breda. According to the youth worker, he was once promised that he could stay until there was a definitive development plan for the area. But the council wants him gone as soon as possible; the property would be unsafe and the cost of maintenance too high.
The municipality canceled the lease on 1 May 2021, but in October of the same year, Breda backed down with the subdistrict court. Driessen was allowed to stay for another year because his interests and that of his clients prevailed over that of the municipality of Breda.
That year is now over. And Driessen can therefore stay for an extra six months if he discontinues the lawsuit: “Tim van het Hof is the fourth Breda alderman who must try to get me away. Not from the city council, but from the municipal council. Tim is also just a cog on the whole, because he thinks my work is wonderful and has respect. I think this alderman is a great guy with his heart in the right place, but I’m not going to do it.”
“The municipality has been making up all kinds of things to get me out for a while.”
Driessen says he will not be bought off, which means that the case will be on appeal in Den Bosch on Wednesday. He thinks he has a good chance of keeping his self-created daycare open longer. In doing so, he still invokes an oral agreement from the past. According to Driessen (but also the alderman at the time), it has been agreed that he will not have to leave until the development plans for the area in Bavel are very concrete.
“The municipality has been inventing all kinds of things to get me out for a long time,” says Driessen. “But there is still nothing concrete. The farmer next to me says he can stay for another five years, but I only have six months. That’s not fair and feels like a tip. No, that’s why I fight to the end.”
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