Minister Hugo de Jonge looks at the installation of new flex homes in Delft, early May.Image Raymond Rutting / de Volkskrant
Last year, Minister De Jonge decided to take the unusual step of purchasing flex homes through the Central Government Real Estate Agency, for an amount of 200 million euros. He came to this decision because, according to the ministry, housing is urgently needed in a time of great housing shortage, also in view of the increasing backlog of municipalities in housing status holders. Municipalities can take over these ready-made residential units from the government as soon as they have a location available. That would go faster than if municipalities would have to order the housing modules themselves, was the idea.
Over by author
Charlotte Huisman is a reporter for de Volkskrant and writes about youth care and the aftermath of the benefits affair.
In May, when the government’s first small hundred flexible homes were placed in Delft, it was already clear that things were not going well. De Jonge then said that an option had been taken on about half of the residential units – and that he expected to lose them all by the end of this year. Now his spokesperson confirms that not a single flexible home from the government has been built since then.
A major bottleneck is the uniformity of the offer. When the contract was awarded in December, the nine chosen flex housing builders were prescribed a strict pattern. At present, the government only offers residential blocks with three floors, each with 48 homes, which municipalities can place either in a U-shape or in several rows. There is, however, variation in the size of the houses.
Rigidity of offer
According to the government, these standards allowed for faster production. But it is precisely the rigidity of the offer that deters some municipalities. Some want lower residential blocks, others higher ones. Moreover, many municipalities want to be free in how they place the houses, appropriate to the location.
After Delft, Leeuwarden is the only municipality with which the government has signed a contract so far. Leeuwarden will place one hundred of the purchased two hundred residential units in the autumn. The other half will follow early next year.
The government says it is in an advanced stage with more than ten municipalities and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) about some 1,100 homes. The most concrete is the plan of the municipality of Bunnik, where the city council approved this summer to build about fifty flexible homes in front of the town hall, now the permit procedure has to be completed. Discussions about the other residential units are only ongoing in ‘the exploratory phase’, according to the spokesman for the now outgoing minister.
‘Learned a lot from the purchasing process’
Because the ready-made flex units are ‘otherwise just gathering dust in storage’, Almere has asked the government whether it could not buy some flex homes outside of the strict standard set-up. ‘We expect that the minister will not handle this rigidly’, says alderman Julius Lindenbergh (VVD). The government says it will look into Almere’s request.
The ministry emphatically does not want to speak of a fiasco. The spokesperson says that a lot has been learned from the purchasing process of the flex homes. ‘In hindsight we should have done this differently, with less strict standards. Because we have shown that homes can be produced quickly, we have set the market in motion.’ The ministry still sees the construction of temporary, modular units as the fastest way to add homes. De Jonge’s ambition is to have around 37,500 by the end of 2024.
Many municipalities are busy with flexible housing projects, sometimes with hundreds of temporary homes. However, these figures still fall far short of the targets. In 2022, about 3,400 flexible homes will be added, about half of what was intended. For this year, municipalities and corporations have plans for about 12,000 mobile homes, but some of these are not expected to arrive until next year. Putting it down turns out to be more difficult than expected. Municipalities have difficulty finding suitable locations. In addition, they often have to deal with fierce protest from local residents, for example because they object to the arrival of status holders.
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2023-08-08 03:00:37
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