The fear among Vennepers that a future residential area will cause parking problems, there was no less after the council meeting last night. The municipality denies that the new residential area will lead to extra parking pressure in surrounding neighborhoods, but the villagers will not reassure that.
More than forty Vennepers had arrived at the council meeting in Hoofddorp. There last night was debated about the parking situation around the Pioneer Bolsterrein. Two thousand homes will be built in that area in the coming years, with special hubs (read: parking garages) where future residents can get rid of their car.
But a specially established residents’ committee is found to that construction. “The number of parking spaces is much too small for the number of people who are going to live there, in addition to the fact that the parking costs of a place in the hubs get so high that people will want to put their car elsewhere. Then we are the pinch as local residents.”
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Han Verkuyl, a member of the committee and one of the dozens of residents who had come to the council chamber last night. For years he has been trying to show the city council with his fellow villagers that the estimates of the alderman are incorrect. For that reason they will also be present tonight, hoping that the council will resist the parking plans.
Their presence does not pass silently. Four speakers are assisted with applause, and the residents provide the debate of lateral comments. The debate is even suspended when one of the Vennepers loudly complains. “There is no support for this plan at all, that’s bullshit!”
The security sends the man out of the room, after which a number of other villagers have seen enough and also leaves the room. One of them is Mahmut Coban. “The municipality says that recently a lot has been adapted to the plan to spare our residents, but that is your pure symbol politics. We want to be able to get rid of our car at our house, everything around it is noise.”
Alderman Marja Ruigrok is not shocked by the emotion of the room, but does understand the frustration. “That is why we admitted that there was little support for our first plans. For that reason we also adjusted the plan on many points, such as when paid parking.” In the council she called for setting up a monitoring plan to be able to keep an eye on whether the parking structure devised has an actual effect.
Committee member Verkuyl sees the intention of the alderman gloomy. “A lot is being promised, but we hear what can no longer be adjusted. The parking standards, the number of houses to be built and how much they will cost, those are the factors that determine whether it will be right. But that will no longer be tinkered with it, unless the council will lie for it together.”
The debate makes it clear that the coalition parties in the council support the plans of their aldermen, so that many villagers see only an option.
Coban: “I hear everywhere around me that people think about or are already taking legal steps. Hopefully there is a perspective between that the college can force to go back to the drawing table.”