Companies operating in the Amsterdam port are up in arms about plans for a massive new housing project in the busy western port region. The city council has given the green light for Haven-Stad which will add between 40,000 and 70,000 new housing units in the operational centre of the port.

Companies would no longer invest in the region which eventually would lose its industrial complexes, Kees Noorman, director of the Amsterdam enterprise organisation Oram warned in the Financieele Dagblad on Friday.

Haven-Stad, which will eventually equal in size the city of Leiden, is an Amsterdam response to the great need for new housing in the Dutch capital. The development would be centred in the Coen- and Volthavens adjoining the Houthaven, which is now under development as a housing centre.

Oram’s Noorman said the city has lost sight of the port. ‘The city should have developed plans for the port at the same time it came out with plans for the huge housing project. But they never thought of how the residential plans would affect industry,’ he said.

Building housing in a port area is asking for trouble, Noorman said. The city council presents living in the port as pleasant, but there is always noise, dust and smell, he said, pointing out the presence of large tank farms adjoining the site.

Another major sticking point is that three large industrial plants in the area will have to be moved.  And if Bunge (soya processing, Eggerding (industrial minerals) and ICL (fertilisers) are relocated elsewhere in the port, there will be no room for new industries at all, Noorman said.