housing

Minister Stientje van Veldhoven, responsible for Environment and Housing, submitted a new bill to parliament that makes it mandatory for homeowners who rent out their homes to tourists to register this with their municipality. Those who fail to do so face a fine of up to 83 thousand euros. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, who insisted on the law, think it does not go far enough, NRC reports.

Dutch rail company NS is looking into building thousands of homes above the railways around Utrecht Central Station, Amsterdam Sloterdijk, and The Hague Central Station. NS wants to use the money it expects to earn with this to modernize the train stations, RTL Nieuws reports.

While perhaps more commonly known for floods than droughts, The Netherlands is allocating seven million euros to combat excessively dry seasons in the country. The money will be used to build larger water reservoirs in sandy areas, to monitor levels of evaporation, and to reduce the impact of salinization on drinking water production, the government announced on Friday.

Dozens of new laws, rules, and regulations went into effect in the Netherlands at the stroke of midnight on Tuesday. Among them, a cut to the 30-percent ruling, new income tax credits, mortgage caps, a sales tax increase, expanded childcare subsides, and more rights for cities to seize homes related to the illegal drugs trade.

GroenLinks, SP and PvdA, the three largest left-wing parties in the Tweede Kamer, together presented an alternative budget that puts "people above multinationals" on Wednesday. They call for more investments in society and in the "livelihood of all Dutch people", Het Parool reports. 

The College of Human Rights think poverty reduction should be higher up on the political agenda and the government should develop a national program to tackle poverty, they stated in a report issued on Wednesday. Human rights such as right to education, employment, health and housing are threatened by citizens' lack of monetary means.

Housing prices in Amsterdam increased a massive 23 percent last year, according to figures from the Dutch association of realtors NVM. The national average housing price increase was 9 percent, RTL Nieuws reports.

The average home in the Netherlands now costs about 20 percent more than in the low point of the financial crisis, the third quarter of 2013. The value of houses in Amsterdam is already well over half again as high. 

The Amterdam mayor and aldermen approved a Harbor City memorandum on Tuesday which states that at least 18 thousand homes will be built in the Dutch capital's harbors by 2040, Het Parool reports. That is nearly twice as many homes as agreed upon three years ago, according tot he newspaper.

The city can also decide at a later stage to also develop the Coen- and Vlot harbor. That would mean there is room for 40 thousand homes and that all harbor areas will be completely transformed into residential areas in the next 20 years. 

The city of Amsterdam will soon start building a thousand new temporary apartments that will house refugees and students. The homes will be located spread over five locations and be used for 10 years, the municipality announced on Wednesday

The Dutch government is giving municipalities 700 million euros extra this year and next year for asylum seeker integration. The money is intended to be used for education, language lessons and care for asylum seekers

The number of Dutch households with a relatively low income and relatively high rent increased significantly in the past years - from 8 percent in 2009 to 18 percent last year. In the same period the households living in the reverse situation - high income, low rent - decreased by 10 percent from 28 percent to 18 percent, according to figures Statistics Netherlands released on Thursday.