Netherlands has enough empty buildings to house all residents of Utrecht

The Netherlands has 17.8 million square meters of vacant buildings with enough space to house all 377,000 residents of Utrecht, the country's fourth largest city. The empty space is roughly equivalent to 200,000 standard new apartments, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and investigative journalism platform Pointer.

Despite a national shortage of hundreds of thousands of homes to accommodate households of various sizes, many existing buildings remain vacant and unused for extended periods. This is sometimes due to deterioration, restrictive regulations, and slow municipal permit processing.

Around 50,000 vacant units exist in retail areas, often above or behind shops, but are inaccessible because doors were removed for larger display windows. Municipalities in the Netherlands are often limited in their ability to enforce occupancy. Further, strict rules also prevent developers and building owners from converting offices and other commercial property into residences.

The problems sometimes affect residential properties, as well. One apartment in The Hague has sat empty for nearly two years, with the owners unable to proceed with renovations as the city has a backlog of 400 permit applications.

And yet some political parties have proposed fines for prolonged vacancy, with elections in Parliament due to take place in a matter of days. Edwin Buitelaar, an urban planning professor at Utrecht University, told Pointer, “Plans often fail in implementation. When is a building empty for too long? How will it be monitored?”

In the Flanders region of Belgium, fines may be handed out when properties remain vacant, but municipal cooperation is crucial. Arthur Orlians, alderman in Mechelen, said, “Rapid permits are actually far more important than the vacancy tax itself.”