Housing construction faltering under complaints from locals; 1 in 3 new homes delayed

Complaints filed by local residents have delayed the construction of one in three new homes. Over four out of five municipalities have received complaints from locals about housing construction plans, according to a study by Nederlands Dagblad and Binnelands Bestuur. “People often say ‘we are not heard,’ but read: we did not get our way,” an irritated official from a Noord-Brabant municipality told ND.

Housing Minister Hugo de Jonge isn’t surprised by the results. “Objecting to new construction is becoming the favorite national sport,” he told the newspaper. Homeseekers’ voices are drowned out by “angry neighbor” sounds, he said.

The image that environmental organizations delay housing construction turned out to be wrong. Only a quarter of municipalities have to deal with objections from this angle to prevent tree felling, for example. And only 1 percent received complaints from local businesses.

Objections from local residents are much more of an issue, with almost no municipality escaping them. The most common reasons for objection are that the new homes will obstruct the view (mentioned in 78 percent of complaints), cause more traffic (63 percent), affect privacy (58 percent), and result in too few parking spaces (53 percent).

Some complaints only impact a small part of a construction project, but others delay entire projects, sometimes involving thousands of homes. In most municipalities, the delays last a year or two because locals continue to fight all the way to the Council of State.

“The right to a view has thus become more important than the right to housing,” De Jonge said. “In this day and age, we can no longer afford that. We cannot do that to young people who see their lives put on hold because they cannot find affordable housing.”

The Housing Minister wants to limit the possibility of endlessly going to court, he said. According to him, complainants sometimes strategically take things all the way to the Council of State, hoping that delay will lead to cancellation. He’d like locals' objections to housing construction to end at the appeals court. That is already several steps - “plenty of opportunities” to get their complaints heard, he said.