Director Geeke Feiter is present on behalf of the Association: "The acute housing shortage in the Netherlands requires new housing, but construction must be climate-proof and water-safe. To accelerate housing construction and limit damage caused by extreme precipitation, national assurance is necessary."
Water Gate
Has Bakker (Member of the Provincial Executive of Utrecht), Fahid Minhas (Director of NEPROM), Marieke Vellinga-Beemsterboer (Member of Parliament D66), Ines Kostić (Member of Parliament of the Party for the Animals), Pieter Grinwis (Member of Parliament of the Christian Union), Lies van Aelst (Member of the Senate SP) and Geeke Feiter debated the proposition that the costs of climate-proof construction and furnishing are borne by the developer. Listening to the MPs present and looking at election programs, Feiter is positive that the next cabinet will work with national standards.
Brightness
Feiter emphasises clarity and legal assurance: "There is currently none. We see the importance of housing shortage and speeding up, so we must work together to ensure that sensible construction and fast construction go into one hand. The answer lies in standards, norms and unambiguity. We have a few stacked challenges. I think that the malleability of the Netherlands is somewhat finite and that we have to relate to our landscape in a different way. National standards provide clarity and can actually help to speed up."
External Advisory Group
Minister Keijzer (Housing and Spatial Planning) has asked an external advisory group with members from the construction sector, science and local government to make concrete proposals to achieve more, faster and cheaper housing construction. The final report of the STOER advisory group (Scrapping Contradictory and Unnecessary Requirements and Regulations) states that the starting point for the development of new construction locations is a shower of 70 mm/hour, or a shower that can statistically fall once every hundred years. Verzekeraars bepleiten een bui van 70 mm/uur should be guaranteed as a national standard as soon as possible.
Climate damage monitor
The Association's annual Klimaatschademonitor shows that damage caused by extreme weather is increasing — both in size and frequency. Worldwide, climate damage has increased by 5 to 7 percent per year in recent years. The impact of peak rainfall was recently visible in the Pathmos district in Enschede, among other places. Weather extremes, such as peak showers that lead to flooding or local flooding, are becoming more and more common in the Netherlands. This causes a lot of inconvenience and costs society more and more money. Climate-adaptive construction is necessary to make buildings resistant to the effects of, for example, extreme precipitation. Adaptive solutions pay off later in avoided damage and misery. In this way, damage and misery will remain manageable in the future and buildings can be insured and financed.