Housing Minister Mona Keijzer withdraws plans for rent freeze after coalition collapse

Housing Minister Mona Keijzer has announced that she is withdrawing her plan to freeze rents for social housing for two years. The BBB will not submit the legislative proposal, she wrote in a letter addressed to parliament. She made this decision “based on the advice from the Council of State, the political developments, and to bring calm and progression to the ministry of housing.”

The Council of State advised Keijzer not to submit the proposal. On Monday, the minister said through a spokesperson that she was working on a "further report" based on the advice. However, she decided to scrap the rent freeze plans after PVV leader Geert Wilders pulled out of the coalition on Tuesday. The rent freeze had been requested by the PVV during negotiations regarding the Spring Memorandum.

"It is now a new reality in which Geert Wilders no longer takes responsibility for solving the problems of the Netherlands," Keijzer explained the political developments before the start of a special Cabinet meeting after the coalition break. "I am a responsible administrator. I am responsible for public housing and spatial planning. So I will continue with what is sensible policy."

If rents do not increase, then the government will also spend less money on housing benefits than first expected. That amount will rise to 492 million euros per year.

Part of that would have gone back to a one-off increase in the rent allowance by 1 billion euros, which the PVV called a “grocery bonus.” Keijzer will now have to find money elsewhere as the “earnings effect” on the housing benefit will disappear if the rent freeze does not go ahead.

The plans for a freeze on rental prices were met with severe criticism instantly, including from housing companies that said that this would mean that they would have billions of euros less to spend on new homes and sustainability.

Keijzer recognized in her letter to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, that the plan was “legally flawed.” She added that she was unable to garner support in the Eerste Kamer, the Dutch Senate. “It has become clear to me that the plan would not have achieved a majority in the Senate.