These are exciting times for Rino Driessen from Bavel. The youth worker will be told by the subdistrict court on Friday whether the forced eviction of his Ariba foundation on Woestenbergseweg will continue or not. Driessen looks forward to the verdict with confidence: “I think they will not fall for the nonsense of the municipality and that I can stay with the daycare.”
Rino Driessen is busy with his ‘tigers’, as he also calls his clients. They are cutting wood with the chainsaw early in the morning. For the stove, because the self made youth worker thinks that he will still be in the building on the Woestenbergseweg next winter.
“If they want to build starter homes on the site, I’ll be gone in no time. But not now.”
Driessen has had a conflict with the municipality of Breda about the plot in Bavel for some time. He claims that he has been promised that he can work and live there until there are concrete plans for the development of the site. The judge ruled otherwise in May and Driessen had to leave the building on 1 September.
He did not and an eviction procedure was started. Two weeks ago, therefore, there was a new process to go to court, which – remarkably enough – again heard both parties very extensively. There was little concrete additional evidence or new arguments from Driessen, but the municipality again remained vague about the zoning plan. The plan is temporary housing, but how, what and when remains unclear.
Where the cards seemed to have been shaken before, Rino Driessen once again has a chance that his daycare center for young people with a mild intellectual disability may remain open longer. He firmly believes in a happy ending.
“The municipality is now protecting temporary homes,” he says while his clients sharpen the blades of the chainsaw. “But they still don’t have any concrete plans. If she wants to build starter homes on the site, I’ll leave in no time. But not now. I can sit there for a while.”
“They want to flatten things and then see what they do with it.”
The youth worker is afraid that the plot of land will remain empty for a long time after a forced departure. “The municipality said in the courtroom that it wants to evict immediately because they have to do asbestos research. Well, sending someone away for such an investigation would then be unique in the Netherlands. They can just do that while I’m there.”
“I wonder what they should do with a plot of 1200 square meters”, Driessen continues. “Because the farmer next to me has just signed a new lease. They want to change the zoning plan, but all of Bavel is against that. No, they just want to flatten my home and only then will they see what they do with it.”
The municipality of Breda will not respond as long as the case is before the court. The court will rule on the forced eviction on Friday, against which an appeal is also possible.
Meanwhile, Rino and his boys continue to cut wood for the winter. Not the wood of the Canadian Oak that has been on the lot for two hundred years. Because that could well become the next problem for the municipality of Breda.