Barend Voorham (68) points to a bird that soars meters high above the dunes of Monster. ‘Look, look, look! There you have a buzzard! Are you a birder? I do.’ He is standing a few meters in front of his own single-family home, where there is an A4 sheet across the window with the text ‘BEHOUD DUIVALLE WATERGAT’. Behind the large lawn in front of his house, the Watergat, are the low-lime dunes of South Holland, behind which the beach awaits. Voorham walks here almost every day.
The retired Dutch teacher picks up his phone and shows a pitch-dark film in which a concert of croaking can be heard. ‘It’s beautiful. Those are natterjack toads.’
For years Voorham looked out over greenhouses full of radishes and spinach seeds. In 2012, they disappeared from view. Homes had to be built, 130 owner-occupied homes between four and six tons. New construction that was already decided at the beginning of this century.
But ten years later, not a pile has been driven and not a single brick in sight. No one knows yet when construction will start. And that while all the signals were green in 2015, the zoning plan was ready. ‘If we had persevered then, we could have started building from 2017’, says location manager Mark Lansbergen of development company De Westlandse Zoom. But that did not happen: after an objection from Stichting Duinbehoud, the development company, which is half owned by the municipality of Westland, adapted the design. With fewer homes and more space for nature. ‘It became a more unique and better plan, more in keeping with the dune landscape’, says Lansbergen. “But we haven’t been rewarded for that yet.”
Because Voorham is still afraid of losing the natural environment in front of his house. His petition has been signed nearly 3,500 times. Now that the new zoning plan has been approved by the city council, Voorham’s residents’ group Monster-Noord and nature conservation organization Natural Delfland are starting two objection procedures. One at the Hague court, against the granting of the nature permit from the province, and one at the Council of State, against the latest zoning plan. In both cases nitrogen is the stick to beat with, the well-known nitrogen lawyer Valentijn Wösten assists them. The objection procedures will not be submitted until 2023, until then Watergat will remain free of piles and bricks.
Legal Christmas tree
Monster is not a special case. In Egmond, residents successfully sat down in front of 163 homes. The construction of 1,265 homes between Heiloo and Limmen cannot go ahead for the time being because the Council of State agrees with local residents that the effect of nitrogen emissions on the North Holland Dune Reserve is not clear. A couple in Weesp already backed down with the Council of State several times, but they managed to considerably delay the construction of 2,750 homes with several procedures.
The Council of State is faced with an increasing number of objection procedures relating to environmental law. An influx of 2,200 cases was expected in 2021, it became almost 2,800, a spokesperson said. Residents’ protest, followed by legal proceedings, frustrates the construction task. That image looms after a tour of de Volkskrant by major project developers.
‘Objection procedures and appeal procedures are increasing and are taking on a disturbing scale,’ says Jan Fokkema of trade association Neprom. ‘We see that people are becoming more empowered and are able to go to court to challenge decisions of municipalities. We are building more than in the past in existing urban areas, so closer to the people. They are hindered by that.’
According to Fokkema, many objections are based on nitrogen. ‘That’s the legal bracket. The nitrogen ruling from 2019 and the failing government policy have made it insanely complicated, it has become a day job for project developers for which lawyers have been hired.’ According to him, it has a cost-increasing effect: ‘Even if objectors are ultimately found to be in the wrong, it can still cause a delay of two to three years. The risks you take are high, which can lead to houses becoming tens of thousands of euros more expensive. It contributes to jeopardizing the target of those 100 thousand homes per year.’
Residents’ protest against new construction is not new, says professor of land policy at TU Delft Willem Korthals Altes. ‘You already had that thirty years ago, if not longer. For example, there were earlier concerns about the habitat of birds, in the 1990s a referendum on Amsterdam’s new-build district IJburg and discussions in the House about relocation of greenhouses for new-build in Leidsche Rijn. Later there was a construction stop because of the particulate matter. Now it’s nitrogen. More and more things are hanging on the legal Christmas tree and people simply use it.’
According to Fokkema, residents and other stakeholders now have a lot of moments to slow things down. ‘In the case of new construction, you can submit an objection to the zoning plan, and then also to the environmental permit. And some projects also require a nature permit, which is another moment. Everyone has the right to object and it should stay that way. But you have to be able to go through those procedures more simply and faster.’
Yellow front door
If residents do not like it, has the municipality of Westland listened enough to the residents? Alderman Cobie Gardien (Spatial Planning, LPF) who has just left, who has been responsible for this file for the past four years, thinks so. ‘It had been known for a long time that housing would be built here. We did our best to bring everyone with us’, she says on one of her last working days at the town hall in Naaldwijk. ‘There have been participation sessions, information evenings and sounding board group meetings. I would understand if there were high tower blocks close together, but that is not the case. It is a derelict and arid landscape that will only get better. Especially compared to the greenhouses where you couldn’t walk through and where light still shone in the evening.’
According to Barend Voorham, there was no real participation. ‘Then we could choose whether the front doors would be yellow or green, the plan was already in place. Of course I am interested, but I am really concerned about nature. There are geese, nightingales, spoonbills here. With those homes it gets busy here and there is more traffic.’
Councilor Gardien understands his concerns. ‘But we also know that there is a huge housing shortage. We have to build, build, build. No one is entitled to an unobstructed view.’
Voorham knows that too, he says. He is also concerned about whether his daughter will be able to find a home. ‘I’m really not against new construction. But why so close to the coast? These lime-poor dunes make South Holland unique, you should cherish that. In Poeldijk, land is fallow from horticulturalists who want to stop. Why don’t they build there?’