“Who doesn’t want teachers and agents like neighbors?” But while retaining the ‘spatial character’ of the residential area

Drive a tour through the Almere residential area Overgooi and you cannot escape the pronounced architecture. Each structure has a nickname, says local resident HP Soldaat (55) from behind the wheel. A stately home with white pillars? “The Temple.” A building with an elongated triangle as a top floor? ‘Toblerone’, after the uniform chocolate bar. And then the ‘Manke donkey’, a villa with a limp donkey in the front garden for a long time.

Also to be seen in the neighborhood: long, wide streets with lots of greenery. A pond with islands, accessible via a walkway. A villa under construction, where the sun beds and palm trees are already in the back garden. And a peeling sign with which the municipality advertises at the entrance of the neighborhood: “Build your dream house, plots of 1,500-5,000 meters2.”

That dream will be gone soon. Alderman Paul Tang (Housing and Spatial Development, PvdA) announced a ‘trend break’ in the housing policy in October. In Almere, the municipality wants to greatly raise the share of social rental properties in four districts and has an eye on the wasteland in Overgooi.

The turnaround is necessary, says Tang in the Almere town hall. For a long time, Almere aimed for affordable purchase. “But those homes are no longer affordable. In the meantime, especially young people can no longer live in the city. Schools and companies complain about the lack of living space for young employees. ” He refers to the slogan that adorns the town hall, ‘Almere for everyone’. “I would like to keep that up with more social and middle rental.”

Slow

CBS figures support tangs story. Of the ten largest Dutch cities, Almere is dangling at the bottom with regard to the share of social rent. At the beginning of 2024, 26.6 percent of the homes fell within the social sector, leaving the city behind the 30 percent intended by the Ministry of Housing.

It leads to rising waiting times for social rental homes, with an average of nine hundred reactions for one home. Even urgent home seekers have to wait six months to even a year before they are assigned a house. It is a problem that more large cities are struggling with.

To make up for a catch, thousands of extra affordable houses must also be placed in the Overgooi village area, the municipality believes. According to Tang, the neighborhood is developing too slowly: “Over 25 years, Overwooi will not be finished in 25 years.”

From the home of HP Soldaat, who was renamed ‘De Bunker’ because of the dark facade and the name of the resident by the neighbors, you look out on a deep garden with a pond. He has been living in this self -built house in Overgooi for six years, a neighborhood where the first inhabitants brought down shortly after the turn of the century and which is named after the location in relation to the Gooi, across the Gooimeer. In 2025, the neighborhood has around 170 villas, with a number of sold, but (partly) undeveloped plots.

For two weeks, Soldier has been interim chairman of the Overgooi interest group (GFA). Earlier, the BVO was successfully put into defense against windmills that would be placed on the Gooimeerdijk. Parallel with the municipal expansion plans for Overgooi there is also a discussion with the province about the arrival of facial -determining high -voltage pylons along the neighborhood. “We also have a clear opinion about that,” he says.

‘Character’

Local residents reacted ‘shocked’ when the municipality announced the plans for Overgooi in October, co -board member Rieneke de Wit (66) tells the Soldier kitchen table. She moved to Almere in 2010 to live close to Amsterdam, where she works as a healthcare director.

Local residents have been taking into account ‘densification’ of the neighborhood for some time, with the previous coalition, ‘well consulted’ about expanding with a maximum of nine hundred homes. It would then concern semi-detached houses or small-scale apartment complexes. But when the Almere coalition fell at the beginning of 2024 and Tang took office as a new alderman, radio silence followed.

For the brightness: the character of the neighborhood is not determined by the income of the residents for us

And then in the fall the municipality suddenly brought out three thousand extra homes in Overgooi, of which a large proportion of social rent. “Then you are soon talking about ten thousand extra people,” says De Wit. “Residents have questions about this. How do we get those three thousand extra homes for each other, while retaining the character of Overgooi? How do you keep the neighborhood accessible, what about facilities? Too little has been thought about. ”

In a letter to the municipality and as a speaker at a council meeting, the interest group expressed its concerns in December. The residents hinted on legal steps for any plan damage – loss of value of their homes – the municipality was allowed to continue.

In Almere, the coalition decided that it wants to build three thousand social rental properties in Villa district Overgooi.

Photos Bram Petraeus

Resistance

Alderman Tang has ‘great difficulty’ with the resistance, he says. “So you want to have a package delivered to the street, or let your child go to primary school, but the delivery person or the teacher can’t live a few blocks away? The fact is that in Overgooi all the well -to -do live together and thereby stand with their backs to society. ”

In turn, the residents do not feel understood by Tang. “For the brightness,” says De Wit, “character is not determined by the income of the residents.” According to her, residents in their work ‘with the greatest possible pleasure’ come into contact with other groups in society. And although some residents want to keep everything with the old, the majority, according to her, is certainly aware of the housing shortage. Moreover: “Who doesn’t want a hundred nurses, teachers or police officers like neighbors?”

No, the character is mainly in “the spatial aspect,” says Soldaat. “People have consciously chosen to live here. The tranquility, the space and the green character with wide avenues and water features attract them. They are people who wanted to put a special home here. Who find it no problem to live a little further from facilities. “

Tang questions that lecture. According to him, what the residents mean by ‘the character’ of the neighborhood is that ‘everything must stay the same’. Three thousand extra homes inevitably means the arrival of apartment complexes of multiple floors in front of their door and extra facilities, such as a supermarket and health center. Tang: “Residents may have bought a lot with certain expectations, but the world has just changed. In a time of screaming housing shortage we are all facing a task. ”

Enthusiasm

That building assignment also sees soldier, although he believes that the city should also add homes in the middle and higher segment. Homes that ‘fit better’ in an accelerated reduction of Overgooi. “You have to focus on all target groups, otherwise the housing market will be stuck again in ten years due to a lack of traffic flow.”

There is sufficient enthusiasm for homes in those segments, according to Soldaat. According to him, the fact that the neighborhood is developing slowly is because the municipality puts too few lots on sale every year. “You could have sold 150 two years ago, but only about 20 were offered.” According to him, it is a lack of capacity at the plot shop of the municipality. Nonsense, says the municipality. The lot store always puts a limited number of plots on sale, to prevent the villas from being built by the neighborhood. Then it takes “seven to eight months” before all plots have been sold. “Animo for 150 lots is not in line with our market image.”

So you want to have a package delivered to the street, or let your child go to primary school, but the delivery person or the teacher can’t live a few blocks away?

In the Almere city council, the PVV and Forum for Democracy are taking over. They call on the alderman to build no social rental homes in a motion in the neighborhood and want more homes in the high segment. Halfway through January, Tang took out the PVV during a council meeting. The party, more than the largest in Almere in the last parliamentary elections, would “not stand for Henk and Ingrid”, but “compete against the economic elite.” PVV councilor Julien van der Kolk says it is to do him to “a reliable government” who adheres to agreements. “Almere may have an elite district, there is enough room for social rent.”

Two weeks ago, the municipalities and the interest group resumed their consultations. “The tone was nicer than in such a letter with a legal threat about plan damage,” says Tang. De Wit is happy that the alderman talks to them again. “That also seems very useful to me as long as you think we don’t want anything to do with the rest of the world.” Hope draws them from a commitment from Tang: “He also wants to put something special in Overgooi. We want to maintain the diversity of construction and the neighborhood design. We could find each other in that. “

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