They don’t have much faith in it. When Iris comes home in the evening, Iris sees herself driving a lot of laps to eventually have to park far away. Tom thinks it will be ‘a shambles of rubbish’ in the Zandvoort neighborhoods close to the beach. When the weather is nice, he foresees that many bathers will pay for parking in the narrow streets, as is allowed from today. Their solution: buy a smaller car and park it in the front yard in an emergency.
The partition wall had to be demolished and there is little green left in the garden. They have bought a smaller car and it is still fitting and measuring. But Iris Vooren is assured of a parking space right in front of her house in the summer, when the street is completely full with cars from beachgoers when the weather is nice.
As a former Amsterdammer, she is used to walking a little further from her car home. But she doesn’t like having to park all the way at the end of the village in the evening. And she expects that to change this summer.
The parking policy in Zandvoort has changed from today to be able to have the same regime for the whole resort. Otherwise, the so-called ‘waterbed effect’ will occur and neighborhoods on the outskirts of the village will become too crowded. But now residents close to the beach are afraid of chaos, because they suspect that the tourists do not want to go to the large parking lot in Zandvoort-Zuid further away.
‘Only one euro difference’
“It’s only one euro difference, why drive all the way there when you’re so close to the beach and you might have kids with you,” argues Iris.
Parking space in the front yard – NH Nieuws / Geja Sikma
“The tourists are very welcome,” says Tom Pijpers. “But its own residents are being pushed away.” The solution of a parking space in the front yard has not been approved by the municipality. But it serves as an ’emergency escape’, which Tom even likes to share with his neighbors if they can’t find a parking space. In the neighborhood app, the problems, but also the solutions are shared.
But Tom and Iris would rather just sit on a bench in the front yard, without looking in front of them. Because they think it is a shame that it is now paved and the greenery is minimal. “This solution is not desired. But yes, you have to do something,” says Tom. “The citizen is forced by the government to take measures themselves.”
“The citizen is forced by the government to take measures itself”
Meer Zandvoorts have already taken their precautions. This is apparent from a study that NH Nieuws has started, in which dozens of Zandvoort residents keep track of how parking is going on hot beach days before the changing parking policy and after today.
Cycling more often
In an initial questionnaire, to which more than two hundred Zandvoort residents responded within a few days, a quarter of the participants indicated that they would leave the car parked more often. Often it is people whose health depends on transport, who park close to the front door in emergencies.
Some of the entrants plan to cycle to work outside Zandvoort on busy days. Sander from the Admiralenbuurt, behind the boulevard in Zandvoort-North, bought a scooter especially for this purpose as transport to work in the Schiphol area.
Of the 210 participants in the NH Nieuws questionnaire, 137 indicated that they would not leave their car parked more often on hot days, so as not to lose their parking space to tourists. Work outside the village forces them to do so. Some refuse to adapt so that they can later file a complaint with the municipality about the parking chaos.
Incidentally, there are also four entrants who want to give the new parking policy a chance before it is fired in advance. And a few think that there is too much whining, and that there was too much parking nuisance in Zandvoort-South.
NH-Parking meter
In the coming weeks, NH Nieuws will check with thirty participants in different neighborhoods how parking is going. Last week they were asked how far from home they could find a place for the car and how long it took them to get there. This sampling will be done a few more times, on different types of days. We will share the outcome of this ‘NH Parking Meter’ in due course.
The municipality of Zandvoort has promised to be lenient with enforcement and to keep a close eye on parking in the seaside resort this summer. “If things get out of hand and parking pressure gets too high in residential areas, we will intervene,” alderman Martijn Hendriks promised the city council this week.