Demolition of Social Dwellings in the Netherlands

Like in most EU countries the Dutch housing stock is ageing fast, not just physically but increasingly regarding the functional performance and market position. As the production of new dwellings is generally decreasing to an annual EU average of below 1% of the existing stock, large-scale demolition will be a less obvious option. Combined with the ecologic burden of demolition waste, life cycle extension of existing dwellings will be of growing importance.

The useful life cycle of dwellings can theoretically be defined by their demand accommodating potential, that is: to what extend the physical, functional and economical characteristics of dwellings answer the needs and preferences of their tenants. In practice though, the plans and motives of landlords are the true decisive factors.

After many years of stable annual demolition, the volume of knocked down housing stock is lately increasing. Being partly due to large scale demolition in two major reconstruction areas: the Bijlmer in Amsterdam and Hoogvliet in Rotterdam, this also may reflect a progressive tendency towards demolition in stead of renovation and reuse of existing building stock. Since we observed this tendency some years ago, we found a notable gap between plans and practice. Ambitions turned out to be far from realistic, and we criticized the underlying biased decision making processes, stressing that renovation based alternatives are often neglected or poorly assessed, due to prejudices and self-interest of the parties involved (Thomsen & van der Flier, 2002).
Housing shortage in the Netherlands is recently going up. The reason being a combination of shrinking new construction and growing floor space consumption. We forecasted this in an early stage, concluding with the essential need for extension of the useful life cycle of the existing stock, using renovation based approaches. Combined with the ecologic burden of demolition waste, life cycle extension of existing dwellings will therefore be of growing importance.

Apart from cultural and emotional aspects, demolition has not only strong effects on physical sustainability, but also on social sustainability. As qualitative knowledge about demolition and demolition motives turned out to be meagre, the research project »Demolition and demolition motives« is targeted on deepening the knowledge and insight in demolition processes, the underlying motives and interests and the influencing factors.

Our survey shows a massive increase of demolition plans of housing associations in the Netherlands, varying from a factor 2 outside the Randstad to a factor 7 within the Randstad and a factor 8 in the 4 major cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht). Extrapolated from the total volume this implies for the next decade an annual demolition of over 0.6%, totalling almost 7% of the social rented stock. In the past decade this percentage was less than 0.2%. Even than the demolition of social rented stock was a factor 12 more than in the rest of the housing stock, forcing up the question what causes this social, economical and environmental alarming early decay of social rented housing stock.

Demolition in the Randstad was concentrated on multifamily blocks, being proportional to market share as well as (weak) market position. This will be continued in the next decade, with roughly 2/5 of the total demolition being early post-war apartments, 2/5 pre-war apartments and 1/5 more recent high-rise blocks; the latter is almost entirely due to the large scale demolition in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. And, though hardly included up to now, the demolition of single family dwellings will also be notable.

The percept of the 4 major cities shows a strong similarity to the Randstad. The demolition of relatively young stock is almost entirely due to two large scale demolition sites: the Bijlmer in Amsterdam and Hoogvliet in Rotterdam. The almost absence of – realised or planned - single family house demolition reflects their limited supply as well as strong market position, regardless of age.

In the last decade the demolition outside the Randstad was relatively extensive, reflecting the feeble market position of particularly the economic weak regions. The demolition was concentrated in the early post-war categories apartment (38%) and single family (25%) dwellings and more recent high-rise apartments (21%). The relatively large volume of single family homes is most probably due to the so called »2-under-1-roof transformations«, the taking down of each 3rd dwelling in a row to create more wanted double houses with garages in between. According to the response this will be continued in the next decade, as the average demolition will double, except a slight decrease in the more recent building ages.

Demolition motives

Demolition motives are strongly related to building age. For pre-war and early post-war dwellings a deficient construction quality is the main argument for demolition; for pre-war apartments it is even the only reason. Though apparently in line with the original technical and physical quality, the Qualitative Housing Survey 2000 (KWR 2000, MVROM 2002) in contrary shows a significant decrease of required reparation costs in the social rented sector and, as a result, a vanished share of substandard social rented stock fit for the scrap. This leads to the conclusion that the building quality is not the only – and most probably not the most decisive – argument for demolition.

A deficient functional quality is a common used argument for demolition of early post-war apartment dwellings, but occurs also for early post-war single family homes. Spatial planning arguments are most often used for demolition of early post-war apartment blocks, while oversupply almost always refers to the fall of more recent high-rise blocks, and to some extend also for early post-war apartment blocks. Economic performance is remarkably only scarcely mentioned, and almost only for early post-war apartment blocks.

Demolition motives should be regarded with some scepticism. When in case of doubt the questioning was persisted, additional motives like social problems (segregation, multicoloured immigration, downgrading market position, problem accumulation) and profitable alternative market potentials turned out to be underlying leading arguments

‘breakers‘ and ,non-breakers‘

The responses show a wide spread. Some housing associations do not demolish much, others report high amounts. This spread has no relation to characteristics like housing market, urban scale or size of the associations stock and only slightly to dwelling characteristics, while there is a consistent relation between the volume of future plans and previous demolition of particular housing associations. Apparently housing associations should be divided in real ‘breakers’ and ‘non-breakers’, most probably according to the associations policy and identity.
The massive increase of planned demolition is mainly due to the ‘breakers’. Due to the privatisation of the social rented sector, the public and democratic control on the demolition plans is limited.

As mentioned above, large scale demolition has serious effects on physical sustainability, regarding the resulting waste and the burden on building material (Thomsen & Sunikka, 2001). But also the effects on social sustainability should be taken serious.
Due to the small share of new addition and the selling out of social dwellings, the relative volume of the social rented sector is continually shrinking. Large scale demolition will imply a further reduction, worsened by the fact that the demolishes cheap dwellings are merely replaced by upmarket dwellings for the selling market. Though only 7 of the questioned associations provided actual data about the replacing dwellings, their figures confirm this observation, as their total of 2155 demolished dwellings are replaced by 1976 new dwellings, of which only 14% in the ‘affordable’ social rented sector, implying a reduction of the social rented stock with some 87%. A massive demolition as reported in our survey will imply not only a relative but even an absolute reduction of the Dutch social rented stock.

A policy based steering of the minimal required social stock is absent though; the actual policy is yet directed to a considerable reduction of the social rented stock in the large urban areas of the Randstad. The findings of the recent national Housing Demand Survey (WBO 2002, MVROM 2003) does not justify such a massive reduction though; the growing shortage in the social rented sector being in contrary a strong sign in the opposite direction.

The practical realisation of the reported demolition plans is highly questionable. Growing housing shortage, insufficient availability of alternative shelter, rising tenant resistance and shortage of building and planning capacity will almost certainly cause a vast gap between plans and reality.
From this viewpoint, the real threat for the neighbourhoods involved is not just the planned demolition but the fact that they in fact are perspectivelessly being given up. Left without proper physical and social investments the resulting futureless »cold treat« may even be worse than demolition, which at the end will nevertheless be the final result

Regarding the rather alarming results of our survey, the demolition plans and policies of the housing associations need to be discussed ^[1].

References:

MVROM, 2002, »Kwalitatieve Woning Registratie 2000«, Den Haag;

MVROM, 2003, »Woning Behoefte Onderzoek 2002«, Den Haag;

Thomsen, A.F. & C.L. van der Flier, 2002, »Updating the housing stock, a policy change towards sustainable housing transformation«, in: »Housing Cultures – Convergence and Diversity«, ENHR International Research Conference, Vienna 2002;

Thomsen, A.F. & M.T. Andeweg-Van Battum, 2004, »Sloop en sloopmotieven; tussenrapportage enquête sociale huursector«, Delft.

Thomsen, A.F. & M. Sunikka, 2001, »Sustainability, Government Policies and Building Regulations in Europe«, in: »Housing and Urban Development in Europe, Papers and Abstracts«, ENHR Conference Pultusk 2001, Pultusk/Warsaw, Poland.

Fußnoten

André Thomsen