The municipality of Groningen is seriously considering introducing a ground lease in the residential area of Suikerzijde, not built yet. The use of land lease means that a home must remain affordable, and the municipality can also benefit from any profit on the sale of a home.
According to Alderman Roeland van der Schaaf (PvdA), housing has several advantages: 'The buyer does not have to buy the land, and an increase in value does not only end up with the homeowner but also with the municipality.'
The city manager also acknowledges that there are disadvantages. For example, banks are not always fond of leasehold construction.
Not sure yet
It is not yet confident that the scheme will come into effect, but the College of Mayor and Aldermen want to work on it. It cannot use it in existing neighbourhoods but new neighbourhoods.
'That's why we're thinking of the Sugar Side. You can think of parts of the district or the entire district. If you can build such a beautiful neighbourhood, we have to make sure that it is affordable for everyone. It should not only be habitable for people with a lot of money.'
lake town
The municipality of Groningen already has ground lease, but not as large-scale as the alderman now plans.
'A lot of use is made of land lease in Amsterdam. You can also see the disadvantages there. The land does not belong to the buyer, negatively affecting the house's value.' Yet that does not stop the alderman of Groningen.
The city council previously saw no reason to use ground lease on a large scale. 'Of course, we could have done that at Meerstad, but the situation was different than', says van der Schaaf.
'No revenue model.'
He refers to the housing market, which is now under high voltage. 'Now we want to do it because there is a crisis in the housing market. I want to emphasize that we do not use it as a revenue model to keep the homes affordable.'
This article is from RTVNoord. Read the original article here.