More temporary homes to help solve housing shortage

Housing corporations want to build 10 thousand temporary homes per year in the fight against the housing shortage facing the Netherlands. But to achieve this goal, procedures to build these homes must become shorter, more locations must be made available, and land prices must be adjusted, said Aedes, the umbrella organization for housing corporations, NU.nl reports.

Temporary homes are modular homes that can be erected - and removed - relatively quickly. They are meant to be placed in locations made temporarily available for a period of 15 years. These homes are built to be ideally suited for so-called urgent home seekers, like newly divorced people, people starting out on the housing market, and students.

These temporary homes are attractive for housing corporations, because no landlord levy applies to them. But the procedures to build these homes take too long, resulting in them losing their advantages given that they will be torn down again after 15 years, Aedes said. In 2017 and 2018, housing corporations only managed to build around 1,500 such temporary homes.

"In the past five years, one in five corporations developed temporary homes, half expect to do so in the next five years," Aedes said. "That choice is partly necessity; pressure on the housing market in a number of regions requires rapid solutions for urgent seekers."