The Gelderland Housing Association

Woningbouwvereniging Gelderland (the Gelderland Housing Association) as an example for the realization of affordable collective housing forms

Can you talk briefly about the origins of Woningbouwvereniging Gelderland (WBVG)?
WBVG was founded in 1983 to provide low-cost housing for young people. Nobody foresaw the problems in housing for young people during the housing crisis at the time; all attention was focused on regular housing. Immediately after its founding, WBVG was approached by squatters eager to legalize their squats and turn them into affordable, decent housing. In eight years, 15 properties – with over 160 occupants – were thus acquired and converted into non-self-contained housing. At the time, the average rent of a housing unit was about €100-€150.

How did you get involved with WBVG?
After studying architecture in Eindhoven, I ended up on welfare and started squatting in Arnhem. Around 1987, during the legalization of the former Casa de Pauw monastery, we as a squatter group called in the newly founded WBVG to make the monastery suitable for housing a group of 43 residents. I worked intensively on that project, including a year or two in construction.
Because of the 1994 grossing-up operation, public housing subsidies provided by the state were cancelled out against loans that housing corporations had taken out with the state. This revealed that WBVG would most likely go bankrupt in its original form. Most of WBVG’s employees left the organization at that time. In 1995, they started looking for someone to guide WBVG in the merger process with a larger housing corporation, now known as Portaal. I applied, got the job and went to work with other tenants to avert the unwanted merger. That succeeded, but the ‘penalty’ was an average rent increase of 23% for the entire WBVG. Fortunately, everyone supported that increase and the continued existence of WBVG was secured.
Two years later I decided to terminate the rent of my home with WBVG myself. Being a tenant and a landlord at the same time did not seem like a good combination at a time when WBVG was developing into a serious housing association.
I have now been working at WBVG for more than 27 years and we have grown into an organization that specializes not only in group housing, but covers the entire spectrum of collective housing.

How many people do you work with in the WBVG organization?
A total of four people work at WBVG, and a fifth will join us soon. We can run an entire housing association with such a small organization, on the one hand because we have a stable team that has grown with all the regulations over the years, and on the other hand because the residents’ associations have a high degree of self-management, which means that we as WBVG have considerably less work. In the past we had a structure with different groups of volunteers, but because hardly anyone has time for such a task anymore, we now only have occasional working groups.

The residents are members of their own residents’ association, but also of WBVG, and from their membership they have a lot of say in the ins and outs of WBVG.

What makes WBVG different from other housing associations or corporations?
First of all, WBVG is by far the nicest and most inspiring housing association in the Netherlands. This is because we don’t rent out individual homes but only entire complexes to residents’ associations. The associations rent the housing units (independent and non-independent) to individuals. In addition to selecting residents, the residents’ associations are also responsible for rent collection, rent policy, vacancies, mutations, loss of rent, parts of maintenance, livability and management of communal facilities and outdoor space. Residents’ associations must therefore be well organized, so we pay attention to that.
The residents are members of their own residents’ association, but also of WBVG, and from their membership they have a lot of say in the ins and outs of WBVG. That is a big contrast with other housing corporations in the Netherlands. Nearly all housing corporations have now become foundations, which means that they no longer have members who have a say.
In total, WBVG has about 500 residents. A large proportion lives in properties not owned by the WBVG, but by another housing corporation. The WBVG is responsible for the long-term operation of these properties (thirty years is the starting point) and operates them in the same way as the properties that are owned. This construction was chosen ten years ago because WBVG was too small to invest in expanding property. Hence we sought cooperation with other corporations, which has proved very successful. In the past seven years we have more than doubled in the number of units and our rental turnover has tripled.
So WBVG does a lot of things differently. Therein lies our right to exist. In our housing forms, apart from very affordable housing, you also come across involved residents, very sustainable projects (we have two straw-built projects, for example), projects in which housing is combined with work, culture and relaxation, special architecture (the collective housing form also translates into differently designed buildings), and a lot of attention from residents for each other. You do not see any form of loneliness at WBVG. You don’t see many social problems at WBVG, or hardly any, thanks to the collective housing forms where residents keep each other out of trouble.

Are there similar organizations in the Netherlands or abroad?
To my knowledge, there is no other organization like WBVG in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, the government only allows WBVG to develop activities in the Arnhem-Nijmegen region, our so-called housing market region.
Abroad, social housing is organized differently and to my knowledge there is no comparable organization to be found there either. Of course, there are organizations that are working on collective housing in their own way. We therefore have close ties with those organizations, think of: Cooplink, VGW, LVGO, Erfdelen, Knarrenhof, Centrum Groepswonen, and so on.

Can you tell something about the size and composition of WBVG properties?
We currently have 46 projects with almost 500 tenants. Some of these are larger new construction projects, but the majority are repurposed properties, such as old schools, monasteries and industrial properties. They are both large and small associations, from three to more than a hundred residents per project. All these properties are completely different, depending on the vision of the residents – whether it is a residential property or a live/work property, where the properties are located, how the group is composed, and so on. Two more projects with another 29 units will be added in 2023.
WBVG does not interfere with the composition of the groups, they arrange for that themselves. However, we do require them to think about their own composition (group profile), and develop and establish policies for it. In this way we have an answer to the people who claim that these are projects that try to circumvent the regular housing distribution system. By the way, you can see that the groups certainly realize a certain amount of diversity. It may be something of a bubble, but still they also regularly accommodate vulnerable people. Swiss research showed that this could be even more than with regular allocation.

The emphasis at WBVG is on collectivity, self-management and communal facilities. Can you briefly explain what these three pillars mean?
Actually, the WBVG has four pillars: collectivity (residents must unite in a legal entity), self-management (residents have far-reaching control over their home and living environment because of the social added value that this form of housing offers) and the communal facilities as a condition for forming a community. Without these facilities, there is no basis for organizing your self-management. The fourth pillar is the resident collective’s vision on living. This means that such a group must have its own identity, because that binds people much more than the actual management of a piece of property.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of communal living?
Provided it is well organized, there are few if any disadvantages. It only has added value if a group is organized strongly enough to fend for itself, and give substance to its ideas for a healthy and pleasant living environment. After all, they can do this a thousand times better than a professional sitting remotely behind a desk. One condition, however, is the degree of organization. If you let people live together and make them jointly responsible for important matters of private life, you also get conflicts. That’s okay, provided the group has the resilience to deal with these. Fortunately, conflicts remain very limited at WBVG. We owe that to the conditions the groups have to meet (such as a well thought-out method of decision-making) and WBVG’s overarching presence. We can step in when groups can’t find a solution by themselves.

How do you ensure that maintenance in such a self-management construction is carried out properly and on time?
WBVG conforms to the traditional demarcation in maintenance: planned maintenance and most of the complaint maintenance is the responsibility of WBVG, daily maintenance is the responsibility of the resident group.
WBVG makes the multi-year schedules, coordinates the maintenance, contracts it out, and performs cost and quality control. But we also offer residents the opportunity to perform the maintenance themselves. In principle, they can claim the budgeted amount for the job. In practice, not much use is made of this option. Maintenance is often skilled work and many people do not have the time or skill to do that work themselves.

WBVG has group financing. That means we no longer have a loan per project that is paid off at a certain point.

What happens to rental income once a property is completely paid off?
WBVG has group financing. That means we no longer have a loan per project that is paid off at a certain point. We look at the value of the total property (now about 10 million euros) and the conditions set by the guarantee fund. If all the lights are green, we can borrow money cheaply with that guarantee. So the link to the properties is no longer there. We make sure that the buildings always look good and that the rent is affordable, looking 25 years ahead. That means that the buildings can certainly be operated for another 25 years without any major maintenance or demolition/new construction.

What segment are you in in terms of rents? Low, medium or high? Or do you have a little bit of everything?
We only have rents below the rent allowance limit of €763. Many rents are lower and are around €300. Year on year we try to raise rents as moderately as possible, no more than necessary. For example, over the past ten years we have had rents rise by a total of 20% where the national average is over 30%.

Are there also properties with workspaces and public functions?
We have quite a lot of mixed projects with all kinds of activity spaces: hospitality, workspaces, cultural and/or social and community functions. Every project is mixed with housing. These projects predate the current Housing Act (2015). Since then, we have been allowed to realize these types of functions only to a very limited extent, otherwise it would be distortion of competition. The projects we realize now almost all have communal facilities, such as meeting rooms or guest rooms that are regularly used for the neighborhood, but unfortunately there are limits to the possibilities in terms of public space. This is unfortunate, because the mixing of functions definitely adds value to the project. It not only provides opportunities for the neighborhood, but also ensures that the project maintains a certain liveliness. That, in turn, is good for tenant engagement.

Qua energielabel en duurzaamheid liggen de ambities vaak huizenhoog, ook al is het niet altijd financieel haalbaar, we doen zo veel mogelijk op dat gebied.

Are residents involved in the creation of new properties?
In nine out of ten projects, the residents decide what the design will look like. They sit at the table with the architect, but professionals are also involved to ultimately get a good representation of all interests. No one has the power to force their will through. Everyone has to agree with the choices made. In terms of energy labels and sustainability, the ambitions are often sky-high, and even if it is not always financially feasible, we do as much as we can in that area.

I saw on your website that you develop character buildings. What are they?
We used the term ‘character buildings’ for existing properties that have been made suitable for group living. In fact, group living can often adapt well to an existing property. It is a very flexible form of living. By using the name ‘character buildings’ we were able to clarify fairly quickly what is meant by it and how management works. Meanwhile, we hardly use the term anymore. Nearly everyone who knows anything about housing nowadays fortunately knows what is meant by collective housing.

There is also a collaboration with another organization called Woonkr8. How did this collaboration come about?
Woonkr8 is the partnership of the housing corporations active in the Arnhem-Nijmegen housing market region. There are about twenty of them. Within this alliance, coalitions have formed that delve deeper into a particular theme. We set up the Coalition Collective Housing Forms, consisting of seven housing corporations, with the goal of stimulating collective housing forms in the region and giving them a better chance.

Are there many new projects and/or collaborations planned?
Several projects and collaborations are in the works. As much as possible, we are using the willingness of fellow corporations to get involved in these forms of housing. In addition, we are in the process of launching a program in which every housing corporation (i.e. all 20 of them) will commit to realizing at least one collective housing project. That means twenty projects should get off the ground in a few years. We hope to start this program in the spring of 2023.

What are your ambitions and dreams for the future?
Dreams aplenty. Collective living needs to become much more publicly known. It also needs to be embedded institutionally, in housing visions, in zoning plans if necessary, but also in legislation. From now on, every housing project should be a collective project. Just as there are BENG requirements for a project, as a requirement there should always be residents involved in building projects and communal facilities should always be realized. If we would do that, in ten years we would have as many collective homes as Germany, Switzerland and Austria.