If you want a comprehensive analysis of the problems in the housing market: read the National Housing and Building Agenda from Minister Hugo de Jonge (Public Housing and Spatial Planning, CDA). If you are looking for more specific information on one subject, skip one of them the six policy programmes except: about the affordability of housing, for example, or about new construction. They have been launched rapidly in recent months, after Rutte IV took office in January. And almost everything is in it.
The problems are many – you’d be hard-pressed to think they would ever be solved. Houses are too expensive, both on the rental and owner-occupied market. There are too few social housing units. There is a housing shortage and the houses that do exist no longer always meet the requirements: they have a poor energy label or do not meet new needs due to the aging population and the increase in single-person households. Neighborhoods are deteriorating, which means that the gap is growing with neighborhoods where things are going well. The number of homeless people is rising, students are forced to live with their parents, status holders have to wait a long time for a home.
But a ‘hard head’ is not for De Jonge. Anyone who reads his goals would think that the housing market will be in a good shape again in a few years. Many of the goals are abstract, such as: ‘The living situation of residents in vulnerable areas will be improved.’ Some are very specific, especially the new-build targets: the cabinet wants to build 900,000 homes by 2030, two-thirds of which are ‘affordable’. In other words: 250,000 social rental homes and 350,000 rental and owner-occupied homes in the middle segment. Every year, 15,000 flexible homes must be delivered and 15,000 homes through the transformation of shops and offices. In addition, a third of the homes must be built for the elderly, of which 80,000 in a courtyard or service flat and 40,000 with extra facilities for people who need a lot of care. And then it is also the intention that one third of the homes in each municipality will be social housing.
There’s nothing Chinese about that. But those who want to know more about the way there, about how the ministry wants to achieve this, it has to look hard. While that is relevant, certainly because the ministry is dependent on many different parties in area developments – including market parties, who do not start projects if they cannot earn money.
The ‘carrot and stick’ are still vague at the moment
Niels Koeman environmental law specialist
Among the utopian vistas there are indeed measures with concrete consequences for people – even if they are relatively small, such as the mandatory bidding log for brokers from next year. The regulation of the rental market, whereby 90 instead of 80 percent of rental houses will receive rent protection, and with which De Jonge wants to combat excessive rents, has so far caused the most controversy. Many private investors are furious about it. Every turn of a knob has an effect, usually in someone’s wallet.
Read also: Will the plan to regulate part of the rental market actually work?
During his many working visits, De Jonge has heard the phrase that transcends all interests: more direction is needed from the government. ‘Back to public housing’ is his mantra, more state and less market. But what is directing? What does that look like? “The ‘carrot and the stick’, how the minister will ensure that his plans actually come true, that is still vague at the moment,” said environmental law specialist Niels Koeman of the Council for the Living Environment earlier in NRC. “It has to be faster and less non-committal than what is currently in policy”, wrote research agency TNO recently in a memorandum on making homes more sustainable. And the Association of Dutch Municipalities wrote in May that it was concerned about the process, because the programs were developed at such a rapid pace that it was at the expense of “quality, depth and support”.
Regional housing deals
Time will tell whether the concerns are justified. With regard to new construction, performance agreements have now been made with the provinces. They have passed on the numbers of homes they want to build in the coming years, and they add up neatly to just over 900,000. These performance agreements are now being converted into regional housing deals, with agreements with municipalities and corporations about locations, target groups and rent and purchase percentages. But the market is not yet involved in all provincial agreements, according to Bouwend Nederland.
According to the trade association, it is therefore not at all certain whether all agreements are realistic. Many of the plans are not yet ‘hard’, which means that no zoning plan has been finalized yet. The province of Gelderland, for example, says it can build 107,000 homes, but only 35,000 of those are ‘hard’. The provinces also set extra conditions, such as the government helping to make social rental homes possible. They cost more than they yield. They also ask for investments in infrastructure, more civil servants, and sufficient nitrogen space. Bouwend Nederland is in talks with De Jonge about realistic housing deals.
The government has made 1.75 billion euros available through the so-called housing impulse – about which the Court of Audit was recently extremely critical – and 7.5 billion euros for infrastructure; the question is whether that is enough.
Read also: Ambitious building ambitions. But are they also feasible?
In the meantime, the circumstances are not favorable: interest rates are rising, house prices are falling, which makes it risky to invest in new construction. Investors are already withdrawing, so construction projects are canceled. On Wednesday it came out that there are not enough buyers for 160 new-build homes in the former ING office Het Zandkasteel in Amsterdam Zuidoost, so that they are all being rented out. And then there is also the recent ruling in the Porthos nitrogen case, as a result of which all construction projects now require a nature permit for the nitrogen they emit – even more delay.