100,000 social housing units can be created in cities’ post-war neighborhoods

The Netherlands can create around 100,000 social rental homes with smart interventions in post-war neighborhoods, including in the crowded large cities, according to architectural firm KAW. The firm carried out city scans on 13 municipalities on behalf of the housing corporations, looking for ways to create more social housing, AD reports.

KAW looked at Amsterdam, Almere, Alkmaar, HIlversum, Breda, Den Bosch, the Haaglanden region, Gooi- en Vechtsreek, Vught, Bergen op Zoom, Roosendaal, Etten-Leur, and Castricum. In those 13 municipalities alone, it found space for 26,000 new social housing rentals in the post-war neighborhoods.

Moreover, these 40- and 50-year-old neighborhoods desperately need upgrades to improve the quality of life and prevent deterioration. So cities can kill two birds with one stone here. “It’s crazy that you build a neighborhood and never do anything about it again,” KAW board member Mathieu Kastelijn told the newspaper. “You have to tinker with it every now and then; otherwise, the quality of life will come under pressure.”

Den Bosch is already trying KAW’s approach in De Haren - a 1970s neighborhood built for young families with family homes, lawns, and playgrounds. But now, most of the children are grown and have left home, and people in their 50s and 60s mainly occupy the neighborhood. Eighty percent of the homes in the neighborhood are social housing.

“Forty percent fewer people live there than in 1970,” Kastelijn said. “The shrinkage in city neighborhoods is enormous. We will bring the number of residents back up to standard.” In the coming years, four apartment complexes will be built in strategic locations in De Haren. 47 single-family homes will disappear, making room for 128 apartments, a net result of 80 additional homes. The apartments offer space not only for new residents but also for existing residents who want to downscale, making family homes available to new families.

“There are an incredible number of neighborhoods like this in the Netherlands,” Kastelijn told AD. “We have to look at existing neighborhoods differently.”

KAW stressed that it is vital to involve locals in the process so that they don’t feel they’re being displaced. “Complete demolition is almost never necessary,” Stijn Heesbeen of the agency said. “Real estate developments are still too often numerically driven. It would have yielded more if half of them had remained standing.” You have to look at the neighborhood feeling, he said. “People who greet each other every morning is also worth a lot. That is often overlooked too easily.”