No easy answer for housing shortage for average incomes: PBL

The shortage of rental housing for people who earn too much for social housing cannot simply be solved by building more homes, the government’s environmental assessment agency PBL said on Monday.

In some parts of the country it is impossible for people on average incomes to find a place to live because of the rules for rent-controlled housing and high rents for non rent-controlled homes, the PBL said.

The problem is particularly acute in Amsterdam and Utrecht where there are very few homes for rents between €710 (the social housing limit) and €1,000. Almost all housing with a rent of the below the limit is earmarked for people earning less than €35,739 a year.

The PBL says the problem could be partly eased if housing corporations were allowed to rent property to high earners on a temporary basis.

However, there are no easy solutions to the problem and new ideas have to be developed outside traditional solutions such as building more homes, the PBL said.

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