Bajeskwartier, a new residential area on the site of a former prison on the outskirts of Amsterdam, will include a special ‘incubator’ for artists who are finding it increasingly difficult to find affordable studio space within the city boundaries.

As Dutch inner city areas are redeveloped and upgraded, the old industrial spaces loved by experimental artists are becoming increasingly short in supply. But developer and Holland Metropole partner AM was happy to ensure the Bajesdorp artists village, first established on the site by squatters in 2003 could remain, albeit in a different form.

The incubator development is now at the planning stage and once the green light has been given, a new building will be erected on the site of the former director’s home. The ground floor will have a café, theatre and music studios and a space for performances. The three upper floors will offer housing and ateliers of 15 to 25 square metres to 10 artists in residence.

The cost of the project is put at €2.5m, of which 65% has been covered by a mortgage by a German cooperative bank. The rest of the funding is being raised via a ‘crowd-lending’ campaign. The 10 residents will each put €5,000 into the fund but will not own their homes. Instead, the building will remain in the hands of a cooperative to preserve the space for future generations.

Once completed, the complete Bajeskwartier district will have 1,350 new homes, offices, commercial functions, shops, restaurants, a hotel, urban farming and workshop space, in addition to the incubator for art and alternative lifestyles. Bajeskwartier will be energy neutral, with heat pumps to provide winter heating and all organic waste created in the district will be used to produce electricity.

‘Sustainability and climate adaptive development are key in this project,’ AM chief executive Ronald Huikeshoven told Holland Metropole magazine earlier. ‘In fact, 98% of the building material salvaged from the demolition work will be reused. We want to respect the site and its history.’

Planning chiefs at Rotterdam city council have published a which are creating attractive public places for people to meet, socialize and exercise, while helping to solve some of the challenges facing urban development in the Netherlands.

The total cost of the investment in the seven projects is put at €233m and work on them should be completed by 2030, city officials say.

The new parks, squares and open spaces, filled with plenty of trees and greenery, will help reduce heat-related stress, absorb excess rainwater and provide new places for residential development by tackling noise and air pollution. They will function, planners say, as green lungs for the city.

In addition, the projects will provide years of work for a large number of people, Bert Wijbenga, the city’s planning chief, told the NRC earlier. ‘They will contribute to our mobility strategy,’ he said.  ‘They will make it possible to build more homes and make the city greener and more sustainable.’

The seven projects are being approached in an integrated way and will also act as a driver for further neighbourhood improvements.  Together, the projects involve planting 700 trees, creating green spaces the size of 20 football pitches and planting 10,000 square metres of green roofs. The overall impact will also boost property values in the area by 15%.

One of the projects involves creating a new park in the former port area on both reclaimed land and old industrial sites. The Rijnhaven park plan includes developing floating green spaces to sit and socialize as well as plans to build 2,500 new homes.  

The Hofbogen is another city park development, situated this time on a two-kilometre stretch of a former railway viaduct that crosses several residential areas.

In all, the seven plans mean a further 17,000 Rotterdam households will live no further than 200 metres from a green space.

Dutch home affairs minister Kajsa Ollongren has told this year’s Provada real estate fair that local authorities, housing corporations, construction firms and developers need to work more closely together to make sure that enough new homes are being built.

 ‘We need to create 845,000 new homes over the coming 10 years,’ Ollongren said in a video message. ‘Like this year, in 2021 there will be more government money to innovate and invest.’

 In particular, the government is working to speed up decision-making about 14 major locations for residential developing, which will involve 60,000 new homes,’ she said.

At the same time, eight of the 12 Dutch provinces are on target to develop enough homes, ‘and that is good news’, the minister said.

Challenges

Nevertheless, the challenges ahead will require a stronger real estate sector, Ollongren said. ‘Local and provincial authorities should do more to allocate land for development more quickly. Investors and housing corporations should ensure there are enough affordable homes. Developers will have to do their best to create sustainable and attractive locations while builders will have to build both quickly and to innovate.’

Henk Jagersma, who heads the spatial planning department at Amsterdam city council, said in a video debate following the minister’s speech that the current government has worked hard to put housing on the agenda.

‘But are they doing enough to restore the balance in the housing market?’ he said. ‘Can we do more to speed up the processes and solve issues such as nitrogen compound pollution and noise?’

Peter Kievoet, Director of Economic affairs, Mobility and spatial planning in The Hague told the debate he and other local authority officials would like to see more tailor-made solutions for particular housing crisis problems.

‘This is not just about the home affairs ministry, but about other ministries, about national government in general,’ he said. ‘I have completely different discussions at the home affairs ministry than I do with farm ministry officials.’

The need for the big Dutch cities to work closely with developers and investors is one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Holland Metropole project.

Developers created 12,500 new homes in empty schools, office blocks and retail spaces in the Netherlands last year, according to new figures from the national statistics office CBS.

Together they accounted for 13% of the 71,000 new homes realised in 2019. Almost half the conversions came from transforming redundant or outdated office blocks.

Holland Metropole partner Rotterdam was top of the list – conversions accounted for 37% of the new homes on the market in the port city last year. In The Hague, 23% of new homes were conversions and in Amsterdam 17%.

In Eindhoven, the repurposing of buildings is also beginning to gather steam. In the city centre, for example, the former V&D department store is being converted into a mix of retail and residential property.

The upper floor is also being taken over by Microlab, a flexible working space company which will include studios, meeting rooms and a sky bar with views over the city.

The trend of converting shops and department store premises into residential and mixed use complexes is likely to continue. A recent report by real estate research group Locatus said that more retail space is likely to remain vacant in the coming period, as the coronavirus epidemic continues to boost the shift to online shopping, and fewer tourists visit popular holiday destinations such as Amsterdam.

It estimates the vacancy rate will grow from almost 8% to 10% next year, and that medium-sized cities, not the big urban conglomerations like Rotterdam and Amsterdam, are likely to be hardest hit.