Efforts to build accommodation for migrant workers and relieve the pressure on housing are being held up by planning disputes.

In the last three years just over 3,000 units for labour migrants have been built, barely making a dent in the backlog of 160,000 homes.

Local residents, provincial government and councils have all raised objections and brought court cases, delaying projects for several years, a survey by RTLZ found.

“Building is the easy part. That takes six months and mostly takes place in the factory,” Bert Verheij of housebuilder HomeFlex explained. “The route to get there, the permits and the objections – selling it to the local area, basically – takes years.”

It took Homeflex four years to build a so-called “Poles hotel” at Elsenbosch in Westland municipality, where thousands of people come to the Netherlands to work in the glasshouse industry.

The council and the province fought over the location of the building, with the council wanting to avoid populated areas while the province objected to locating it in the countryside.

The two sides compromised on an industrial site, but that required a change to the planning designation, causing further delays.

Petitions and protests

Local residents then objected to the site, between Hoenslersdijk and Naaldwijk, because roads would have to be diverted and a water basin relocated. The Council of State dismissed the complaints, but it took another year to secure a nature permit, after which the site was finally opened in October 2020.

Other residents’ associations have handed in petitions to the social affairs government raising their concerns about the impact of groups of migrants moving into an area where there are often few facilities.

“Labour migrants often live in stressful situations and hang out in the streets because they are cooped up in tiny spaces,” Marly van Leeuwen of campaign group Bewonersbelangen Arbeidsmigratie said.

Other residents have been known to take more direct action. A glasshouse owner in De Lier, Westland, who submitted plans to build accommodation for 700 labour migrants on his land had his buildings defaced and two of his vehicles set on fire. He also received a bullet in the post, RTL Z reported.