The Netherlands goes to the polls to vote for 342 local councils on March 18 and Dutch News is focusing on the campaigns in 10 towns and cities where most internationals live.
Residents of Amsterdam and The Hague have told Dutch News the biggest concern for upcoming local elections is housing and Delft is no different.
Despite a slight decrease in pressure in the housing market in the past few years, Delft voters – students and internationals alike – are worried about affordability and supply of homes.
The city of 110,000 people skews young, the average age is 39.8 compared with the national average of 42.2, thanks to its university of technology. The local student party, STIP, holds six seats on the 39-seat city council, the same as the liberal D66 and the green party, GroenLinks.
For older Delft voters, the city has always been a Labour party stronghold. From the 1980s until 2010, PvdA was the largest party – for many years by a wide margin.
In 2010, PvdA nearly tied with D66, and the following election, in 2014, the liberal party would take home twice as many seats as Labour. D66 didn’t keep its lead for long, in the following elections saw GroenLinks with the majority – so everything is to play for this time round.
Housing is the concern, from young to old
“I had to live with my parents during my first year of studying, then I could only find short contracts, like three months,” Fleur Beekhof, an industrial design student, told Dutch News. She is planning to vote for STIP because she wants them to build more student accommodation.
Danielle Cohn, who moved to Delft three years ago for a job at the university, says that housing was a huge source of stress when she relocated. “All of my colleagues warned me that it was bad but I came from London, so I didn’t think it could be any worse and then it was,” she said. She is eligible to vote but hasn’t decided which party will get her support yet.
Pressure on the housing market has dropped in recent years, according to calculations by developer BPD. For student rooms, however, new rental laws have caused supply to drop. An assessment by newspaper NRC in November found that the number of private rooms for rent has dropped more than 40%.
All of the parties are in favour of more housing, they are divided on the how and where.
“We think DUWO should build more houses,” GroenLinks council member Rinske Wessels told Dutch News, referring to the national student housing body.
The housing non-profit provides around half of the student rooms in Delft. The 2022 coalition agreement aimed to add 3,500 more rooms, but so far, only about 300 have been realised, according to the city.
D66 wants to make it easier for private landlords to rent rooms, while STIP wants to see more rooms and efforts made to reduce rent.
In their programme, ChristenUnie says they want to see more houses for seniors, including mixed projects that allow for households to transition as their numbers change.
Car free but not everyone likes it
The government has increasingly pedestrianised the city in recent years, removing parking spaces and restricting traffic. GroenLinks, STIP, Volt and the pro-animal party PvdD are all in favour of keeping the city as car-free as possible.
The right-leaning parties including the VVD, far right FvD, and several local parties argue this has hurt businesses and residents. Hart voor Delft calls for an end to the “harassment of cars” in the city centre.
D66 and the Christian Democrats CDA, however, caution that the transition must be made together with local businesses.
Theaters, bars, and restaurants
The city’s largest theater, De Veste, is in need of major renovations, lacks air conditioning and is not fully accessible. How to rectify this – whether to tear it down, renovate or relocate entirely – has been a hotly debated topic for several years.
Delft council officials have put together a package of measures to help smooth things over until a permanent solution can be found. CDA, Hart voor Delft and Onafhankelijk Delft are the only parties opposed to funding new construction.
Unsurprisingly the student party calls for allowing bars and restaurants to set their own hours, a move mostly supported by the VVD. The remaining parties cite noise and nuisance concerts in their opposition.
Delft key information
Current council executive: STIP, D66, GroenLinks, PvdA and ChristenUnie
How many seats on the council: 39
Total number of voters: 76,000
Number of international voters: 8,600
Local election information in English:
Municipality website with election information
Groenlinks/PvdA alliance
STIP
D66
CDA
Volt
Delft has a Stemwijzer voting aid in English
Additional research by Eden Tweedie
