In total, permits to build 74,000 new homes were approved in the Netherlands last year, a rise of 10% on 2020 and the highest number in more than 10 years, according to the Dutch national statistics office CBS.

One third of the licences were given to build rental housing while the rest is made up of properties for sale – across all price ranges. Most new permits – 19,000 – were handed out in the province of Zuid Holland, which includes Holland Metropole partners Rotterdam and The Hague.

‘The number of permits is an indicator of the number of new homes which will be built in the coming years, but the average time to build after licencing is around two years,’ the CBS said. The total does not include new homes which are realised from repurposing other buildings, such as empty offices or schools.

Government plans

The figures were published just as new housing minister Hugo de Jonge outlined his plans to realise one million new homes over the next 10 years.

The minister told MPs earlier this month that he is currently working on a National Housing and Construction Agenda which will have six underlying themes: construction, housing for focus groups and the elderly, quality of life, sustainability, spatial planning and choices for the future.

‘This programmatic approach focuses more directly on concrete goals, monitoring and control so that the ministry can make sound agreements with everyone involved and to ensure everyone takes their fair share in solving public housing and planning issues,’ the minister told MPs.

Developers and investors have been calling on the government to take a more coordinating role in the provision of more residential housing for some time. De Jonge said earlier that he wants to speed up procedures and cut red tape. 

Coordination

The raw plan covering how the government intends to speed up construction will be presented in mid March, while in early April, the focus will be on housing for special groups such as the elderly and students. Later, attention will switch to affordable housing – both to buy and to rent – and the government is already committed to introducing more restrictions on private landlords. 

‘I want the government to take back control again with regard to this fundamental right to housing, as well as in the field of spatial planning,’ De Jonge said in a briefing to MPs.

The government’s role in recent years has become too small and for too long people have believed that the market would automatically provide a solution, he said. ‘It is all the more important to take control now because of the enormous shortage [of housing].’