Rent freeze will cut housing construction by 85,000; May not benefit all social tenants

The coalition’s plans to freeze the social housing rent for two years will lead to approximately 85,000 fewer homes in the coming 10 years, Housing Minister Mona Keijzer said in a parliamentary debate. It is also not yet certain that the measure will benefit all social housing tenants, the PVV acknowledged.

The PVV, VVD, NSC, and BBB coalition want to freeze social housing rent for two years. But this will mean that housing corporations receive less rental income. As a result, the corporations will be able to borrow less for housing construction. That deficit could increase to tens of billions of euros in the coming decade.

Aedes, the industry organization for housing corporations, calculated that housing corporations will fall about 50 billion euros short. Keijzer will talk to the corporations in the coming period to see what is possible.

Angry opposition parties and organizations from the sector raised concerns about the housing shortage becoming even worse as a result of this measure. Keijzer agreed. “What do I think about that? It’s a fact.”

It is also not yet certain whether all tenants in the social sector will actually pay the same amount of rent in the coming two years, PVV MP Jeremy Mooiman acknowledged. The measure seems to mainly benefit tenants of housing coproprations, and not the aorund 400,000 households in the social sector that rent from private landlords.

“No detailed agreements have been made here,” Mooiman said, to the great surprise of the opposition parties. The PVV parliamentarian wanted to know from Minister Keijzer what options there were for social tenants with private landlords.

That caused great indignation from the other parties. The PVV promised to reduce all rents by as much as 20 percent, and now it is uncertain whether all social rents will remain the same, they pointed out. Mooiman only said that “as far as the PVV is concerned,” all social rents will be frozen, but he did not make a commitment.

Keijzer also could not provide clarity on this point. She will incorporate the coalition’s agreements into a ministerial regulation, and then it will have to be seen whether it will be possible to freeze rents for this group as well.

The Minister hinted that this will be a difficult task because all private landlords who rent out social housing will have to be properly compensated. “That is an almost impossible, unfeasible exercise.” According to Keijzer, it concerns hundreds of thousands of landlords. If it cannot be properly arranged, Keijzer fears “endless legal procedures.”