More than 79,000 new homes planned for The Hague region

Over 79,000 new homes will be built in the Haaglanden region in the coming years, including more social housing units. An agreement on the plan was reached Friday between the eight municipalities in the region, including The Hague and Zoetermeer, the province of Zuid-Holland and housing associations.

The housing shortage in the region is continuing to increase and the need to build new homes is great, according to the parties involved. The plan is also to achieve a better distribution of social housing among the municipalities in the region.

"We are seeing an increasing need for housing. In order to ensure that sufficient housing is available by 2030, we are substantially adding more homes," said Robin Paalvast, the chair of of the committee tasked with finding a a consensus solution among the parties involved.

"We have a housing crisis. To ensure sufficient social housing, housing associations will have to build three times as much in the coming years as they do now," said Mohamed Baba, the chair of the social housing landlords association in the Haaglanden region. He said "it is important that everyone involved works hard not only to arrange the houses on paper, but also to actually build them."