De Volkskrant opens big on Friday (16 November) with an article on the solution to the housing shortage. Prefab houses are ready to be erected for longer or shorter periods in many places in the Netherlands. Conceived by Bouwend Nederland for the inhabitants of the Netherlands. And it has been like this for decades. Bouwend Nederland knows how residents want to live. Residents pay hefty rents or borrow the maximum possible amount from the bank. Besides, diversity is hard to find. That housing construction is responsible for a lot of environmental pollution - there are studies stating that construction is responsible for as much as 9% of CO2 emissions - is conveniently forgotten.
For a few years now, the Tiny House movement has blown over from America to the Netherlands and has been enthusiastically received by tens of thousands of Dutch people who would love to live in a Tiny House. A Tiny House is a new form of housing with a clear philosophy. Small fully-fledged homes of up to 50m2 floor space with the smallest possible ecological footprint. They stand on (temporary) foundations, but can also be on wheels. Bouwend Nederland has seen that Tiny Houses have become hugely popular, devised prefabricated models and is marketing them as the solution to the acute housing shortage. However, the Tiny House movement also revolves around other motivations such as concerns about climate and environmental issues and the desire to live and work more in connection with each other and nature. Prospective residents have a strong preference to be at least their own principal for their own Tiny House and are often also the (co-)builder themselves.
Small housing is now being taken up from the point of view of housing shortage and that issue certainly needs to be solved. But do not forget the wishes and needs of the residents. Land on which houses are allowed is extremely scarce in the Netherlands. The Tiny House Netherlands Foundation calls on municipalities to consult with their residents. How do they want to live? How can they participate in solving the pressing housing shortage? Do they want to build their own Tiny House? Do they want to live in temporary places that the municipality can make available? The new Environment Act coming into force in 2021 offers plenty of opportunities to work together on this, and across the Netherlands there are initiative groups eager to consult with the municipality to come up with solutions together. In this way, the municipalities can kill several birds with one stone: they listen to the wishes of their residents, who can solve part of the housing shortage themselves, while at the same time meeting quite a few of the topics of the Paris climate agreement. On behalf of Stichting Tiny House Nederland, Marjolein Jonker (project leader and Tiny House ambassador) and Monique van Orden (chair)
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