In my backyard

One of my friends lives at the top of a high-rise in Voorhof. While visiting for dinner a few weeks ago, I managed to sneak a peek of Delft at night before the wind threw me into the stairwell. Not to sound sentimental, but I believe that I am very lucky to live in such a nice city.

And Delft really is a beautiful city. I’m not only talking about the centre of town, the churches, the brick houses and pavements. Even beyond that, I personally appreciate the large, rolling boulevards with tree canopy cover, two-way bike paths, and electric buses and trams passing through. Those of us who have found a place to live in Delft are quite well off, but not everyone is so lucky. In the last few years, students at TU Delft have been facing an uphill battle to live here.

Another friend, who had been living in Rotterdam for the past year and commuted to Delft Campus every day until recently, managed to nab a room in the new, modular housing unit on campus. While helping him move (well, after carrying a wardrobe down four flights of stairs), I brought together my many observations of breakneck housing construction around Delft. The need for housing is so great that this housing complex started being used even before it was completely finished – and it’s definitely not the only one.

Very few of these new developments are actually geared towards students

I’m happy to see that there’s so much construction of new housing, even though it might be a bit annoying to change my route to the station when I have a train in three minutes. However, it seems to me that very few (in Dutch) of these new developments are actually geared towards students, even though they are the demographic that is in most need of housing. And as my fellow columnist Mirte Brouwer wrote last week, two student housing complexes in the city will soon close down, sadly reducing the supply of student housing even further.

It is possible that the newly built units may still lead to a redistribution of housing on the rental market, allowing some students to find a place that is more affordable compared to rents in The Hague or Rotterdam and the daily commute. But the focus on high-end single-family units prices out most students and inhibits the cosy communal living that some may desire. All that in a rental climate that is skewed against students (‘Geen studenten, PhD-stel is mogelijk’, no students, PhD couple is possible), because of popular stereotypes that paint them as loud and unrestrained.

So how do we guarantee more student housing? Perhaps a similar arrangement as that for social housing could be reached locally, whereby a certain percentage of each new development is reserved for students. But if TU Delft really is to grow and expand its student population, even that may not be enough. We need to take the concerns about housing these students seriously, and not only consider building more educational buildings, but also a city where they can feel at home.