In 2006, responsibility for implementing the Dutch housing allowance system was transferred from the Ministry of Housing to the Tax Authority. It has since been renamed, and is now known as the ‘rent rebate system’. A number of dilemmas have become evident since the 2006 changes. Attention has shifted to how to implement the system effectively: how to limit the overconsumption of housing services, how to avoid moral hazard, how to reduce outright fraud, how to reduce the poverty trap, and how to prevent the escalation of public spending. These new dilemmas have led to the central research question in this article: how to redesign a system of rent rebates? The discussion of these dilemmas points to further changes. Proposals for a redesign of the rent rebate system in the Netherlands are presented. These proposals could also be relevant for other countries.@en

In 2013 Dutch government introduced the so-called landlord levy (‘verhuurderheffing’), to be paid by owners of housing units with regulated rents. In 2017 this levy reached the annual level of € 1.7 billion. In 2016 the landlord levy scheme was evaluated by the Ministry of Housing itself and by COELO, an independent research institute. The Ministry of Housing stated that there are enough reasons to continue the landlord levy beyond 2016. The COELO-researchers concluded that the impacts of the landlord levy are negative: the affordability for low-income households is at stake and the investments in new social housing decreased dramatically. We evaluate the evaluations and present the impacts on rents, the housing investments, the sale of social rented dwellings, and the management costs of housing associations, but in particular on the level playing field between social housing (mainly with regulated rents) and commercial housing (mainly with free rents). We argue that the landlord levy is a killer of tenure neutrality in the Dutch rented sector. It transforms the more or less unitary structure of the rental market into a dual structure. We finish our analysis with conclusions and recommendations, related to the current unequal level playing field in Dutch housing.@en

Rapport geschreven in opdracht van Woongaard, samenwerkingsverband van woningcorporaties, TU Delft (OTB), Delft/Leiden.@en

Eind 2016 presenteerde de interdepartementale werkgroep Sociale Huur beleidsopties om de kosten van de huurtoeslag terug te dringen. Met name de opties voor de lange termijn kennen echter zwaarwegende nadelen. Gelukkig is er een alternatief.@en

Between 1950 and 1990, housing was the driving force behind the spatial growth of the Randstad. Growth poles (1970s) and later VINEX locations (1990–2010) were the main components of growth management. Transport infrastructure has developed greatly since the 1920s. Since 1990, infrastructure development has increasingly become the structuring force for the spatial dynamics of the Randstad. Schiphol was seen as the mainport for airlines, and Rotterdam-Europoort as the mainport for shipping lines and container transport. The landside infrastructural connections for Schiphol and Europoort had a big impact on the growth in the capacity of continental roads and rail lines. ICT- and energy infrastructure are now developing quickly. Recently, Amsterdam Internet Exchange became the largest ICT node in Europe. Finally, the Delta programme was introduced, strengthening the coastal areas and leaving more room for the rivers. For the future, a combination of housing, infrastructure and water for spatial developments will determine the spatial structure of the Randstad further. A compartmentalized plan of the Randstad between the main dikes is presented, which will increase the resilience of functions of the Randstad in the future when the North Sea level is expected to rise substantially. The analysis presented could be relevant for many urban deltas worldwide.@en

According to current social theory, global economic, political, social-cultural driving forces are reshaping the way we organize our production and consumption. This would result in the dawn of the era of the New Geography. This might explain that in Western Europe the countryside is changing rapidly into an arena in which many different stakeholders compete for the land and the countryside becomes multifunctional in time and space. In this contribution, we will focus on one challenging planning aspect of these dynamics: the combination of an attractive developed (pseudo) countryside, housing development and water-retention in the urbanized Netherlands. Water safety has become an important spatial and economic planning topic since the greenhouse-effect will lead to more water excess in the Netherlands due to more heavy rainfall, riverwater and a rise of the sea-level. Especially in the economic core of the Netherlands, The Randstad-Holland, huge investments seem necessary to protect the people, the built environment and our economy. The challenge is to design an attractive, multifunctional and safe area that is affordable for the state, for developers and the final consumer. Each of these stakeholders makes costs-benefit analyses as a part of a general risk-assessment procedure. This assessment has become important in the Netherlands due to deregulation politics. So, the questions become: what are the positive valued externalities of public investments for private users, how can validly quantify and monetarize them, and finally how can we apply these private excessive gains to reduce the unprofitable public investments. To ex-ante evaluate the externalities of investments models (spatial) models are applied. Especially in spatial and economic planning models are necessary to understand the many recursive rules that exist within economic and spatial systems. The National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) is a state agency that develops and uses GIS-based evaluation land-use models to assess risks. It noticed that the appraisal of housing nearby water was lacking in its models. It commissioned the Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility studies to review literature on the methodological aspects of the assumed relationships and to estimate the part-utility/part-valuation of water nearby housing location as a first step to improve its models. This paper presents some of the results of these studies.@en

According to current social theory, global economic, political, social-cultural driving forces are reshaping the way we organize our production and consumption. This would result in the dawn of the era of the New Geography. This might explain that in Western Europe the countryside is changing rapidly into an arena in which many different stakeholders compete for the land and the countryside becomes multifunctional in time and space. In this contribution, we will focus on one challenging planning aspect of these dynamics: the combination of an attractive developed (pseudo) countryside, housing development and water-retention in the urbanized Netherlands. Water safety has become an important spatial and economic planning topic since the greenhouse-effect will lead to more water excess in the Netherlands due to more heavy rainfall, riverwater and a rise of the sea-level. Especially in the economic core of the Netherlands, The Randstad-Holland, huge investments seem necessary to protect the people, the built environment and our economy. The challenge is to design an attractive, multifunctional and safe area that is affordable for the state, for developers and the final consumer. Each of these stakeholders makes costs-benefit analyses as a part of a general risk-assessment procedure. This assessment has become important in the Netherlands due to deregulation politics. So, the questions become: what are the positive valued externalities of public investments for private users, how can validly quantify and monetarize them, and finally how can we apply these private excessive gains to reduce the unprofitable public investments. To ex-ante evaluate the externalities of investments models (spatial) models are applied. Especially in spatial and economic planning models are necessary to understand the many recursive rules that exist within economic and spatial systems. The National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) is a state agency that develops and uses GIS-based evaluation land-use models to assess risks. It noticed that the appraisal of housing nearby water was lacking in its models. It commissioned the Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility studies to review literature on the methodological aspects of the assumed relationships and to estimate the part-utility/part-valuation of water nearby housing location as a first step to improve its models. This paper presents some of the results of these studies.@en

According to current social theory, global economic, political, social-cultural driving forces are reshaping the way we organize our production and consumption. This would result in the dawn of the era of the New Geography. This might explain that in Western Europe the countryside is changing rapidly into an arena in which many different stakeholders compete for the land and the countryside becomes multifunctional in time and space. In this contribution, we will focus on one challenging planning aspect of these dynamics: the combination of an attractive developed (pseudo) countryside, housing development and water-retention in the urbanized Netherlands. Water safety has become an important spatial and economic planning topic since the greenhouse-effect will lead to more water excess in the Netherlands due to more heavy rainfall, riverwater and a rise of the sea-level. Especially in the economic core of the Netherlands, The Randstad-Holland, huge investments seem necessary to protect the people, the built environment and our economy. The challenge is to design an attractive, multifunctional and safe area that is affordable for the state, for developers and the final consumer. Each of these stakeholders makes costs-benefit analyses as a part of a general risk-assessment procedure. This assessment has become important in the Netherlands due to deregulation politics. So, the questions become: what are the positive valued externalities of public investments for private users, how can validly quantify and monetarize them, and finally how can we apply these private excessive gains to reduce the unprofitable public investments. To ex-ante evaluate the externalities of investments models (spatial) models are applied. Especially in spatial and economic planning models are necessary to understand the many recursive rules that exist within economic and spatial systems. The National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) is a state agency that develops and uses GIS-based evaluation land-use models to assess risks. It noticed that the appraisal of housing nearby water was lacking in its models. It commissioned the Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility studies to review literature on the methodological aspects of the assumed relationships and to estimate the part-utility/part-valuation of water nearby housing location as a first step to improve its models. This paper presents some of the results of these studies.@en

Architectuur Lokaal vroeg aan Yorick Meefout, ontwikkelingsmanager bij Stadgenoot, wat volgens hem een groot dilemma is in de woningbouw en dit voor te leggen aan Hugo Priemus, emeritus hoogleraar Volkshuisvesting aan de TU Delft. Zijn vraag aan Priemus luidde als volgt: ‘Er is spanning, omdat de opgaven voor bijvoorbeeld verduurzamen of verdichten op maatschappelijk vlak voordeel opleveren, maar op individueel vlak flink ingrijpend kunnen zijn. Het gevolg is dat dergelijke grote opgaves meer tijd, meer geld en misschien wel meer spanning opleveren dan gewenst is. Veel wordt per gemeente/corporatie of project opnieuw bedacht. Wat zou hiervoor een oplossing kunnen zijn?’ Priemus geeft Meefout zijn reactie op deze vraag.@en

De lakmoesproef voor woningcorporaties de komende decennia is het realiseren van de energietransitie in de corporatiewoningen, waaronder het aardgasvrij maken van ten minste 95 procent daarvan voor 2050. Bij de aanpak van deze forse transitie kunnen corporaties voortbouwen op succesvol beleid uit het verleden, betoogt Hugo Priemus. Lessen uit de stadsvernieuwing en stedelijke vernieuwing van de emeritus hoogleraar Volkshuisvesting van de TU Delft.@en

Op 16 januari 2018 schreven Roger van Boxtel, president-directeur van de NS, acht wethouders Verkeer van Almere, Amsterdam, Delft, Den Haag, Leiden, Rotterdam, Utrecht en Zoetermeer (waarom ontbreken Haarlem, Dordrecht, Zaanstad en Amersfoort?), en vier OV-vervoersdirecteuren een ingezonden stuk in NRC Handelsblad onder de kop ‘Investeer nu in lightrail om verkeersinfarct te voorkomen’. Het was niet voor het eerst dat werd gepleit voor lightrail-verbindingen in de Randstad. Het nieuwe is dat nu niet zozeer wordt gepleit voor de realisatie van afzonderlijke verbindingen, zoals destijds de omstreden Rijn-Gouwelijn, maar meer voor een stedelijke georiënteerd lightrail-systeem dat stadskernen in de Randstad met elkaar verbindt.@en