N. Brabant government approves budget; Will build new village to fight housing shortage

The Provincial Council of Noord Brabant has approved the 2024 budget after a one-hour meeting. The parties supported the "balanced and politically unbalanced budget" presented by the new coalition a few weeks ago. Only PVV, Party for the Animals, JA21, and Forum for Democracy voted against it (43-8).

The Provincial executive board, which is made up of representatives from the VVD, GroenLinks, PvdA, SP, D66, and Lokaal Brabant, has not yet had time to include new policy plans in the budget. Nevertheless, it has increased from 1.2 to 1.4 billion euros. The council is making additional funds available for public transport (6 million euros), environmental services (7.8 million), and the nitrogen approach (1.2 million euros).

The 15 parties in the provincial government submitted dozens of proposals during the State Assembly. Several proposals received a majority of votes, including the motion from the VVD, BBB, and Lokaal Brabant to investigate the possibility of building a new village with 3,000 to 5,000 homes. The parties believe that this is necessary to fulfill Brabant's ambitions to combat the housing shortage, in addition to the existing construction plans in the cities and villages. The province wants to build around 130,000 homes by 2030.

However, the BBB, the largest parliamentary group in the assembly, which pulled out of the coalition negotiations, caused a stir when it made a motion proposing that agricultural land be made available for housing construction. On the contrary, the BBB's election manifesto states that as much as possible should be built on empty and available land in existing town centers and villages. However, according to parliamentary group chairman John Frenken, the "edges of agricultural land" could be best used for temporary housing construction, partly because farmers can earn money from them through long leases.

"The BBB is doing a 180-degree turn with this," said PVV MP Maikel Boon. "If you start offering agricultural land as building land, land prices will rise much further and you will make it completely impossible for young farmers to take over farms. You are destroying young farmers instead of being there for them." The motion was rejected by a large majority.