Amsterdam region to get 230,000 new affordable homes; 100K ready by 2025

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema and Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations signed a new Housing Deal for the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area on Friday. The deal states that 230 thousand new homes will be built in the city and its surroundings until 2040, with focus on affordable housing for lower and mid-level incomes. 100 thousand of these homes will be built by 2025, the city announced in a press release. 

With this the mayor and Minister want to guarantee that there will be sufficient available housing in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area in the coming decades, AT5 reports.

The government and the region want to make sure that the new housing construction does not make the region less accessible. Therefore they want to accelerate the development of residential building locations along the Hoorn railway line, including station areas in Zaandam, Zaandam Kogerveld and Purmerend. The government made a budget of 2 million euros available for this. The two provinces in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region pushed 2.9 million euros into a "flexible pool of experts" with the goal of accelerating these construction plans. The government added another 1 million euros to this budget. 

To make sure that the urbanization happens in a sustainable way, the housing supply will be considered in conjunction with topics such as work, climate adaption and quality of life, according to the agreement. This must ensure that newly built homes are future-proof. 

Amsterdam and the government also want to ensure that housing associations in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area have enough room to invest. This is currently difficult for the associations, as a large part of their finances is tied up in the commitment to build 5 thousand social housing homes per year and making existing homes more sustainable. The Housing Deal states that the region is committed to ensuring that housing associations have "sufficient locations and opportunities" to realize their targets. 

The region also wants to make sure that existing homes remain as affordable as possible, and to do so will tackle housing fraud more intensively. An experiment is being launched in Amsterdam for tackling "repeat offenders". The city did not say what this experiment entails, but Minister Ollongren made a 500 thousand euros contribution to this experiment. Ollongren will also submit a legislative amendment to help cities regulate holiday rentals through sites lie Airbnb. Exactly what this bill will look like is not yet clear. 

Another measure in the new deal aimed at keeping housing affordable, is a so-called "emergency button" with which the city can prevent rapid rent increases on the basis of a percentage of the home value. Exactly how this control measure will work, is not yet clear. Minister Ollongren promised to elaborate soon. 

The government is also giving Zaanstad 500 thousand euros for experiments with neighborhood renewal, and to support homeowners dealing with unexpected costs due to foundation problems, for example.