(article from Aedes Magazine, february 2009)
Twente anticipates shrinkage
Vereniging Woon, the umbrella organisation for Twente housing corporations, is participating in the pilot project Innovative Housing in Twente. The pilot is concerned with future population shrinkage and falls under the DC Noise project, in which five countries of the so-called North Sea region are cooperating. The aim of the project is to gather and share knowledge regarding demographic changes and the related consequences for example, for the housing market.
DC Noise stands for Demographic Change: New Opportunities in Shrinking Europe. Regio Twente, the collaborative partnership of the fourteen Twente municipalities, has taken the initiative in this project by bringing together nine comparable regions in Germany, Belgium, Norway, Scotland and the Netherlands in a knowledge network to explore the effects of the population shrinkage. Besides Regio Twente, the provinces of Groningen and Zeeland are also taking part in this project.
DC Noise is not solely concerned with housing: pilots also focus on such issues such as employment, amenities and education. For instance, the Employment Market pilot has been started in Twente. The Innovative Housing pilot focuses on a few demonstration projects across the broad field of housing. The region is currently making an inventory of suitable concepts in this respect. Seeing that Twente is faced with both fewer young employees and an ageing population in the coming decade, this could be a question of residential care projects although a small-scale project with innovative home automation or the new social welfare centre to be built in the village of Westerhaar could also serve as a demonstration project.
According to Linda van Asselt, housing policy adviser at Regio Twente, the participating regions regularly exchange knowledge and experience. ‘Germany in particular is already much further than we are. We can learn a lot from them.’
Peter Zuithof, director of the Vriezenveen/Westerhaarm Rental Foundation agrees. ‘The pilot must lead to a tool that each region can use in its own way.’
But first and foremost the pilot must create awareness. Zuithof: ‘The Twente municipalities are still highly geared to growth, but as a region we must work together and forget the idea of competition. In this, the corporations are more or less on the same wavelength.’
As a result of the cross-border DC Noise, work is now in progress on a Dutch knowledge network in which involved parties of all types, including Aedes, for example, can take their place. Van Asselt: ‘We wish to disseminate our experiences as widely as possible. Everyone is welcome to have their say or obtain information. All of us must profit from this.’
