The minister is responding to the State of the Housing Corporation Sector, the annual report from the Authority for Housing Corporations (Aw). The regulator states that collaboration between municipalities, provinces, and the national government remains crucial to accelerate the construction of social rental housing. The Aw sees that ambitions are high, but the construction of new homes is still too slow to take off. The shortage of corporate housing will therefore continue for the time being.
To accelerate local housing construction, Minister Keijzer also sent the bill for Strengthening Housing Policy to the House of Representatives last week. This clarifies the division of roles between the various levels of government. The minister is also working with Aedes (housing corporations) and the VNG (municipalities) on new land policy, for example, by establishing general guidelines for determining social land prices. This should prevent prolonged negotiations and unnecessary loss of investment capacity for corporations.
Housing corporations must ensure that there are enough homes that are affordable and of good quality in livable neighborhoods. They need to be able to fulfill this role effectively, and they cannot do it alone. Therefore, Minister Keijzer made agreements with Aedes and the VNG at the end of 2024 in the revised National Performance Agreements regarding the numbers of homes to be built.
The Aw advises investing in sufficient construction sites and reasonable land prices for social rental housing. This is the first requirement for the desired growth in new construction to 30,000 social rental homes and 5,000 mid-rent homes per year starting in 2029. The Aw also suggests that rental policy, housing allowance policy, and affordable living costs should be viewed in conjunction and that it should be investigated which positive incentives lead to a better relationship between price and quality of a home. This is because the relationship between rent price and quality of social rental homes has been disrupted: the rent price no longer always reflects the quality of the home. This makes it difficult to invest in further improvement, hinders mobility, and affects the sense of fairness among tenants and home seekers.
The minister writes that especially changes in the WWS, housing allowance, and clarity about sustainability objectives should ensure a good balance between affordability and quality. The revised WWS, which came into effect on July 1, 2024, should help to better value homes of higher quality. As a result, rent prices can come more in line with the energy quality. Homes with good labels, and therefore lower energy costs, have a higher maximum rent price.
Finally, the greening of the housing stock by corporations should ensure more living comfort and lower energy costs. To achieve the CO2-neutral heating target for 2050, corporations must significantly improve the insulation of their rental homes. A clarifying agreement has also been made in the revised National Performance Agreements: on average, each corporate home may consume 73 kWh/m2 of energy for heating.
The Aw annually reflects on the performance of housing corporations in areas such as new construction, affordability, and livability. In the report, the regulator also provides policy signals and looks ahead to the joint tasks for the housing corporation sector.