Adding an 'extra street' to every village will result in 95,000 homes

A street that houses just under 50 homes can be built on the edges of more than 2,100 villages and cities in the Netherlands. This would ensure that a maximum of 95,000 extra houses can be built and could "make a modest contribution to the housing construction task." The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) calculated.

Over 980,000 extra homes need to be built in the Netherlands by 2030. The principle of an 'extra street' could help produce 10 percent of that. The agency also said other solutions to the housing shortage are necessary, such as urban densification, more efficient use of existing living space, or large-scale expansions.

According to the PBL, achieving an 'extra street' is quite simple because the facilities and infrastructure are already there. The costs of realizing the homes are relatively low. The approach can also help meet local housing needs.

The downsides are the concerns about damaging the landscape, the worry that the homes will be expensive, the expense of agricultural land, and the fact that buyers will use the car more.

During the calculation, the agency said that they had taken spatial restrictions into account, such as airport noise pollution zones, protected landscapes and nature reserves, and water safety. "Other conditions for making 'additional streets' possible, for example, from spatial quality, housing market, and affordability, have not been included.

The principle of an 'extra street' is also in the main policy agreement and the government program.