The Pen | Prof. Dr. P.J. Boelhouwer, professor of housing systems at TU Delft

After years of VINEX housing construction, Dutch housing construction is entering an entirely new period in which inner-city construction will be the norm. For example, the State of Housing shows that 80% of the building land available for housing construction is now located in the city. A very substantial change in direction, then, because in past years this percentage was around 30%. The type of housing that will be built in these locations also differs greatly from the housing types from the VINEX era in which many single-family detached houses were built. In the new inner-city locations, apartments in the somewhat more expensive price ranges will predominate.

Because many new development sites are located on old industrial sites, the construction of more affordable housing is under strong pressure. The question that can be asked here is whether we are not making the same mistake as in the 1960s, when, based on the modernist ideas of urban planners, much of the Netherlands was filled with high-rise gallery flats. Even at that time, many behavioral scientists warned that these homes did not sufficiently match the prevailing housing preferences of mostly young families. When they were given the opportunity and many ground-level homes with gardens were offered in the growth centers, these households left the high-rise buildings en masse, and the construction of gallery flats was eventually virtually discontinued due to a sharp drop in demand. The largest apartment building of the time, De Knoepert in Venlo, with 499 dwellings, was never even fully occupied and was blown up with much fanfare in 1999.

As in the 1960s, urban planners and mostly progressive city administrators are quite adamant that all salvation should be sought in the construction of, this time, not cheap but expensive apartments. Anyone who cautiously dares to comment on this is quickly dismissed as an environmental or open space criminal. As in the 1960s, however, the choice of this elite is completely at odds with the current housing preferences of house seekers. For example, the most recent WoON survey by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations shows that of those looking to move, as many as 57% opt for a ground-level home (mostly owner-occupied). 30% opt for an apartment in the rental sector, but these are mainly first-time buyers who are designated for social housing. Only 16% opt for an owner-occupied apartment. And let these be the very properties that will be offered in abundance in the coming years! Furthermore, it appears that the vast majority of those interested in moving prefer to live in a green housing environment. This choice has only been reinforced by working from home in corona time. Faced with these preferences, some urban adepts indicate that residents should get used to this then and won't want anything else soon. The fact that many families are currently leaving cities on a fairly large scale is obviously not taken into account.

So why this somewhat reckless choice by our city officials? Well, one of the main reasons is to save open space and nature. Apparently, in making this choice they have not listened to the many nature organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund and the Forestry Commission, which advocate making nature possible outside the cities through housing. In itself a beckoning prospect for many. Increase the area of the Netherlands invested in housing from 7 to 8% and greatly expand the number of nature areas at the expense of heavily polluting agriculture. An excellent business case that can count on a lot of support from left to right.

Nor have lessons been learned from the building crisis in the United Kingdom. After all, there a parliamentary commission of inquiry headed by Sir Letwin concluded that the stagnation in building production could not be explained by a lack of sites or building capacity, as initially assumed, but by non-market housing programming. The main recommendation was to build less expensive owner-occupied apartments (which in the UK are also often purchased by foreign speculators). The UK has also begun to build a number of new growth villages and towns.

The question we may ask based on all this is whether within a generation we will again make the capital mistake of caring little to nothing about prevailing housing preferences. After all, a donkey doesn't stumble twice on the same....