With funds, Kamer takes first step towards more housing co-ops

Impression of the housing cooperative De Binnenhaven, which is to be built in Almere. Image: SLA Office

With a national loan fund of 10 million euros, the House of Representatives wants to provide financial support to housing cooperatives. This is a first step towards the “more space” promised for collective life in the coalition agreement. The fund is badly needed, but it’s not a lot of money, say those involved. It could support about five projects, shows a coaster calculation. “Disappointing,” says SP MP Sandra Beckerman.

“This is a positive development, indicating that co-operative housing deserves support. But there should have been more money in it. So says Trevor James, president of the cooperative knowledge network Cooplink, about the national fund for cooperative housing that the House of Representatives has given the green light to.

In Vienna in Austria, Munich in Germany and Zurich in Switzerland, housing forms where residents are co-owners of the complex are already widespread, but in the Netherlands they are only just beginning to take off. MPs from the coalition parties in the Netherlands want to change that with the €10 million prize pool. They are supported in this by the SP. To that end, MEPs submitted an amendment for debate in the Housing Committee on November 7.

The fund has two purposes. First, it fills gaps in funding for housing co-ops. In addition, it offers additional guarantees that facilitate the attraction of external financiers such as banks, explains PS MP Sandra Beckerman. Dutch banks are now reluctant to lend. This is partly due to the lack of coverage. Purchasers of private housing are covered by the national mortgage guarantee, housing associations by the Social Housing Guarantee Fund, but housing cooperatives lack such provisions.

“It only got worse”

With the fund, the deputies are finally giving substance to the promise of cooperation resulting from the coalition agreement. “We are creating more space for alternative forms of housing and cooperative housing projects,” he said.

In recent months, however, he has remained calm in The Hague. The subsidy for Cooplink will expire this year. A movement of the SP and BIJ1 for a guarantee of 50 million euros for start-up cooperatives, did not obtain a majority in September. Beyond an Adopted movement of the PvdA, which was loosely oriented towards the use of state real estate for housing cooperatives, did not in fact materialize.

“The coalition agreement talked about supporting co-op housing, but nothing happened. In fact, the situation only got worse when the subsidy for Cooplink disappeared. That’s why we thought it was important,” Beckerman says of the amendment. His party wants the fund to also be used to make housing co-ops more accessible to low-income people.

Five projects

The structure of the fund is similar to that of the loan fund for housing cooperatives of the municipality of Amsterdam. This metropolitan kitty contains 20 million euros, made available from the municipal budget. Despite the support of the SP for the amendment, Beckerman therefore criticizes the amount released. “We would have liked to see more. This amount is disappointing.

James van Cooplink calculates that the national government can support around five projects with the €10 million fund, based on an average of 40 houses per project, €200,000 foundation costs per house, with 25% coverage per the fund, 70 by the bank or other donors and 5 from own resources.

We must therefore see the fund above all as “part of the puzzle”, reacts Tineke Lupi. She is a member of the advisory board of Cooplink and is involved in the project as head of the program for innovative living at the residential building workshop in Almere. the complicated realization of the housing cooperative De Binnenhaven. “It can definitely help attract money from the bank. That’s good, because housing co-ops now depend on crowdfunding.

“But we are not done with that. Also because financial coverage is just one of the reasons housing co-ops struggle to get started. You only go to the bank if you can present a compelling business case. This is already often not possible, for example due to construction costs or land prices.