The Dutch government has made an agreement with provincial and local authorities about spending €620m to subsidise the building of 51,000 new homes in the short term.

The government agreed last year to put €1bn into housing in an effort to speed up developments because of the shortage of rental and owner-occupier homes. According to some estimates, the Netherlands will need 845,000 new homes by 2030.

In total, 27 projects have been given the green light, involving a number of Holland Metropole partners in the Amsterdam region, The Hague, Eindhoven, Rotterdam and Utrecht.

Affordable

Some 65% of the new homes will fall into the affordable housing category, including some 6,000 cheaper owner-occupier flats and houses. Some will target seniors and starters on the housing market, and some will focus on students.

The subsidy amounts to € 5,690 per home. None of the projects could be built without extra financial help, for a variety of reasons, housing minister Kajsa Ollongren said. ‘Much of this is due to the investment needed to connect the project to public transport routes,’ she said.  ‘Almost all the projects involve far reaching measures to make the location suitable for building.’

Twelve of the projects involve redeveloping old industrial sites, such as the Binckhorst in The Hague, the Rotterdam Feyenoord City scheme and Utrecht’s Merwedekanaal zone. Work on most of the projects will now start next year.

Speed

Now the funding has been agreed, minister Ollongren said she hoped work on the projects would start as soon as possible. ‘We have to make haste in building more affordable homes to give starters and people on low incomes more opportunities in the housing market,’ she said. The government is contributing €290m of the total subsidy bill.

Local authorities had put forward 52 plans for consideration, and some of which will be resubmitted in October after adaptations are made, the minister said. She has set aside €225m in government money for the second batch of projects.