Twenty municipalities in the Flemish periphery around Brussels are to be granted a partial exemption for the construction of social housing. The mayors do not consider this to be their responsibility, as more and more people are moving from Brussels to the periphery.
Vlaamse rand
20 municipalities around Brussels granted social housing exemption
Published:
The exemption has been granted by the Flemish Housing Minister, Melissa Depraetere of Vooruit. Municipalities that have built too little social housing in the past are being encouraged to clear their backlog. This is not possible for every municipality, partly due to spatial constraints.
“This is in the interests of vulnerable residents in their municipalities, who have often been on the waiting list for a long time,” Depraetere said. “At the same time, we are taking spatial realities into account. Municipalities that show they are making considerable efforts but lack sufficient space will be granted greater flexibility, without a single social housing unit being lost.”
This means we still have to build 496 social housing units. That is absolutely unrealistic
As a result, 20 municipalities including Drogenbos, Grimbergen, Halle, Kraainem, Overijse, Sint-Genesius-Rode, Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Wemmel and Zaventem will be granted a full or partial exemption from the obligation to build social housing.
Halle is being granted a 75% exemption, but according to mayor Eva Demesmaeker of N-VA, this offers no added value.
“This means we still have to build 496 social housing units,” she said. “That is absolutely unrealistic. Our city’s future population growth is a major factor; for us, 80% of this growth consists of people from Brussels and abroad. That is why we will have to build so many social housing units in the future.”
As Halle and other cities and municipalities disagree with the decree, they are taking the matter to the Constitutional Court and the Council of State.
“On the one hand, there is the limited space we have here and the difficulties we face,” says Demesmaeker. “On top of that, there is also the issue of fines, whereby a city is fined, while ultimately it is the housing associations that are responsible for providing social housing. So there are a lot of issues at play here, but we will certainly not leave it at that.”