Municipal elections: what about student accommodation?

Students are staying with their parents for longer and longer due to the housing shortage. The shortage is particularly high in cities such as Amsterdam, Delft, Eindhoven and Leiden, as revealed by the National Student Housing Monitor last autumn.

With elections approaching, voters can consult the Voting Guide to verify which parties they are most aligned with. However, not all parties mention student housing in their programmes, even in major student cities. Political choices considerably influence the student housing market.

The same party can hold different positions on this issue across municipalities, so voters can't always predict where a party stands.

Room rental
Room rentals could be subject to fewer regulations. Landlords would find it easier to split an entire property into rooms or take a tenant in a spare room in their own house.

The Delft-based party Studenten Techniek in Politiek (STIP) is in favour of this. STIP was the largest party in the previous local elections. Left-wing and centrist parties such as D66, CDA and PvdD also want to make it easier for landlords to rent individual rooms rather than entire properties.

However, ChristenUnie and PVV are less than enthusiastic about it. They argue that such a policy would come at the expense of the quality of life in certain neighbourhoods. VVD's stance appears to vary by municipality. In Delft, the party sees mainly opportunities, but in Wageningen it actually wants the rules ,tightened, as it believes this would cause too much nuisance there.

In Nijmegen, by contrast, both left-wing and right-wing parties want it to be easier to split properties. They believe this could help alleviate the housing shortage quickly. The shortage of rooms is also quite high in this city.

Social housing
What about social housing: should there be more of it, or less? Student housing providers such as DUWO, SSH and Idealis also fall under this sector, but social housing is not just about student accommodation.

Parties such as PvdA, GroenLinks, the Party for the Animals and SP are advocating for more social housing in several municipalities. For example, in Tilburg, a statement in the StemWijzer proposes that at least 40 per cent of new-build homes should be social housing. The aforementioned left-wing parties support this idea.

Left-wing and progressive parties are calling for more social housing in Utrecht and Enschede, too. “The more affordable, the better,” says the Utrecht-based party Student & Starter, which managed to secure a seat on the municipal council in the previous elections.

Centrist and right-wing parties such as D66, VVD and CDA often consider such percentages too high. According to VVD, such rules mainly cause further delays in housing construction.

Containers?
Another proposal, put forward by the municipalities of Leiden and Wageningen, is to invest in temporary student accommodation, such as container homes. D66, VVD, Volt and the Party for the Animals believe this is a good idea as this could offer short-term relief from the housing crisis.

The Students for Leiden party is against this proposal. “Temporary solutions do not solve the housing crisis,” says SvL. CDA and GroenLinks-PvdA also prefer a permanent solution, partly because of the quality of living.

Large-scale campuses
Another interesting question: should students have their own campus or live scattered throughout the city? In Maastricht, SP and PVV would prefer students to live outside the city on large campuses. The local party, Senioren StadsPartij Maastricht, which won the most seats in the previous elections, also supports this idea. CDA, PvdA and VVD see campuses as a means of maintaining the ‘housing balance’ in the city.

GroenLinks, PvdD, Volt and D66 take a different view. “We do not play students and the city off against each other,” says D66. Forum voor Democratie also considers a ban inappropriate and prefers to tackle nuisance "where it arises".

Floating student campus
Student housing is not covered in Amsterdam’s StemWijzer, even though the issue is a prominent feature of local politics. The city is known as one of the most expensive student cities in Europe. The HvanA university magazine wrote about it this week. Volt, for instance, proposes a striking idea: a ‘floating student campus on the IJ’.

Polling stations
Dutch citizens and European citizens are eligible to vote in the municipal elections on 18 March. Students from outside the EU may only vote if they have been living in the Netherlands for at least 5 years.

There are at least four student parties in university towns. The parties in Delft and Groningen were founded in the 1990s, whilst the Utrecht party was established in 2013. Students for Leiden was founded in 2020.