As early as October 25, 2019, FGA read about housing cooperative De Warren in the Volkskrant and wondered: Why does it work in Amsterdam and not in Rotterdam? Without a cent in the bank, together to think up and build a complex for about 50 people: affordable, social, and sustainable. The cooperative will become the collective owner and will manage the building itself.
How do they do that? And aren't their claims and ambitions very big, and their target group somewhat limited and privileged? FGA spoke with Chander van der Zande, policy sociologist and co-initiator. They meet in the canteen of De Ceuvel, a breeding ground in Amsterdam Noord.
The Warren has won a tender from the city of Amsterdam for a cooperative residential building on Centrumeiland. Construction started in May 2021. There will be 36 units, of which 16 social and 20 mid-rent homes. Five units are for residential groups. There is room for approximately 50 adults and a number of children. The first sketches were inspired by the concept of IWAN, near Nijmegen.
Designing your own living environment. That's what it's all about. De Warren wants affordable, social and sustainable housing. The five-storey wooden building will have solar panels and heat exchangers, 30% of the space will be shared, and the outside will be welcoming to plants and insects. Each floor will have a large communal kitchen, there will be co-working spaces and spaces for other activities that can also be used by people from the neighbourhood. Eighty percent of the financing will come from the German GLS bank, the rest via crowdfunding and a participation fund.
That it does work in Amsterdam with housing cooperatives and the Housing Cooperative Action Plan is, according to Chander, partly due to the efforts of alderman Moniek van Doornink, who is responsible for land policy, alderman for housing Laurens Ivens, and Clemens Mol, a lawyer with a long track record at the intersection of housing and self-government who co-wrote the action plan. In the coming four years, 13 more tenders will be issued for housing cooperatives, and that is just the beginning. Amsterdam wants to use this to support the realization of permanently affordable social housing: housing that remains outside the market.
