Not sure why this particular news story was worth writing / sharing, but the article highlights an example of a real problem in the Netherlands and likely in other places. Once you build a building it will likely be there for a very long term, so a lot of effort goes into planning it well. This also means it has to go through procedures where people can object to plans and this can lead to very long delays. There are also cases where people object only looking for financial reward in exchange for dropping their objections. In this case the court ruled in favor of the planners, but especially when it rules in favor of the residents that are already there this can throw out years of work planning for a specific site.
The national government is looking to shorten these procedures, for example by not allowing someone to object to a judge ruling about the objection. This is not necessarily a good thing, but considering The Netherlands is one of the most densily populated countries in the world, NIMBY is a serious problem because there is a backyard everywhere.
This article misses an important point.
The Dutch government is imposing more and more restrictions on rents and house market in general with the goal of protecting low income people. That made it less convenient for landlords to rent cheap apartments and for developers to build cheap buildings with the result that the market for low income people sucks as usual and any plan to get out of that situation just halted.
1m houses? It’s about 10 years that they promise things like that.
1m houses? It’s about 10 years that they promise things like that.
Iirc, the housing problem was known for decades already… And politicians have promised solutions. It’s become worse now. That’s not a situation unique to the Netherlands though.
Another, imo more disturbing signal in major traditional cultural cities is the gentrifying aspects of neighbourhoods, were local politics decided to take cleanup " affordable " neighbourhoods, and oust the creative more marginalized groups, without providing proper alternatives.
Haven’t read too deep in that issue lately tbh, but thats what I’ve hearing in all major cities, like Amsterdam, Berlin etc etc Those cities used to be a magical cooking pot of cultures . I miss that.
Amsterdam (and the whole Randstad) are full of expats and immigrants. Despite the dreams of the right wing, there is probably 1/10 - 1/5 of the population that doesn’t fit in the “pure Dutch” ethnicity.
