Since the announcement, Thijsen has had hectic days, he says. “Lots of phone calls, texts. At first negative, lately sometimes positive. I expected this. Six, seven years ago, the arrival of an asylum seekers’ center gave little resistance, but now things are different. I understand that.”
Thijsen also understands that the municipality’s plans are a deterrent for new homeowners in the new Vries-Zuid district. According to Lukkien, a number of people have already given up their purchased plot. “But there are also those who are stuck on their plot and are now at a loss,” says Lukkien. “This is terrible for them.”
The fact that an asylum center will be located here – near Vries-Zuid – is unacceptable to opponents. “We already owned the land,” says Thijsen. “Moreover, we already said in 2006 that homes would be built here.”
In other words: the neighborhood knew that something would happen one day, but an asylum center was not expected. In addition, residents had to learn from the media last Friday that the plans were in place. Necessity knows no law? “No, come!” says Lukkien. “They know how important this is to us. To bring it to us like this, without prior consultation… I think it’s sloppy.”
Local residents fear inconvenience from a neighborhood in which both asylum seekers and ‘social tenants’ come, but Thijsen says he has agreed with Woonborg and Stichting Eelder Woningbouw that “not only people with a backpack come there.”
Thijsen is positive about the asylum seekers, who are currently being accommodated elsewhere in Vries, Zuidlaren and Eelde. “They are not nuisances, but just very nice people,” he says firmly. “And if there are any, we will simply send them away. We have always done that for the past nine years – since we started receiving refugees.”
The neighborhood is not happy about it and is considering a follow-up. In three months’ time, the city council will have to make a decision about the new plans and Lukkien hopes to convince parties that this is not a good plan. “We hope that politicians will be wise enough to reverse this.”
And a smaller plan? “Then it will be a lot better,” he says. “As long as it fits within a small center like Vries and as long as the municipality is open about what it wants. They have not been that way yet.”