Minister Donner of Home Affairs’ Student Accommodation Action Plan 2011 to 2016 was signed by a number of municipalities, student accommodation agencies, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands and the Dutch National Union of Students (LSvB) in The Hague last week. The Action Plan proposes the construction of 16,000 student flats within five years and a relaxation of regulations.

The building of the student flats will require a 1-billion Euro investment, and accordingly, and investment fund is to be set up. In addition to this investment, local and national regulations are to be relaxed, which should bring about more rooms. This means that the minimal statutory size of a student unit can be reduced from 24 m² to 18 m² so that new student apartment blocks can contain more rooms. From now on, temporary habitation of buildings will be permitted for ten years instead of five, making their remodelling of cost-effective. As the regulations in this area are relaxed, it will become easier to use empty office buildings for student accommodation. Municipal parking standards for new buildings should be lowered, so that new student flats will not require unnecessary amounts of parking space.

There is a huge shortage of student accommodation in the Netherlands - as many as 30,000 rooms are needed, according to the LSvB. Locally, Leiden requires another 4,150 rooms. As the number of students is expected to rise in coming years, Kences, the umbrella organisation of student accommodation agencies says that, on a national scale, another 65,000 flats will be needed by 2015.

Student accommodation agencies DUWO and SLS Wonen are pleased with the plan.  Jan Benschop, DUWO’s manager, says: “Kences has achieved this after much lobbying.” He supports the adjustment of the minimal floor area of a student unit, calling it “a good measure. Foreign students who come here do not need something the size of a ballroom. Now we can build more rooms at one location and have more tenants per building, which will make it cheaper.” An SLS Wonen spokesperson says that they trust that the measures will be implemented quickly in Leiden.

Both organisations claim that the plan to build 16,000 student flats is feasible. “We were already planning to build half that number”, says Benschop. In his opinion, the measures will provide more scope for investments. DJZ