Two hundred additional temporary rooms to be realised at De Dreijen

The Chemistry building. © Marte Hofsteenge

The rooms should be ready on 1 September, to coincide with the start of the new academic year. Idealis will be assigning the rooms. The temporary housing will be realised for a period of six years.

Office buildings

Socius, the housing agent for young people that renovates empty office buildings to make them suitable for housing, already has temporary dorms in Wageningen. The former administrative centre of the university at Duivendal was adapted by Socius into 180 student rooms, and 96 rooms were realised in the Computechnion at De Dreijen.

Held aside

The additional rooms in the Chemistry building are necessary to deal with the increasing housing shortage in Wageningen. Especially Dutch first-year students have difficulties finding a room, because the number of students increases and the university is holding aside room for international students coming from the other continents.

Setback

Besides this windfall, there is also a setback to be found in the development of additional student rooms. The Agro Business Park has objected to the construction of 300 temporary rooms in Kortenoord. These rooms were supposed to be ready by September 2019, but the construction will be delayed by one or two years due to the procedure. Several entrepreneurs at the Agro Business Park fear that student housing next to the business park will hamper the settling of new companies.

On the positive side, Idealis will deliver the student accommodations on the Mouterij grounds this year. As of 1 November, 375 additional rooms will be available on that location.

Additional reading (partly in Dutch):

• Plannen voor Dreijen/Duivendaal

  Organisation – 05 October 2017 16:19-Er zit schot in de ontwikkeling van de WUR-terreinen Duivendaal en de Dreijen. Voor beide voormalige ‘campussen’ heeft de raad van bestuur…

• Big room shortage among Dutch students

  Student – 25 January 2018 14:36-Very few Dutch students have been able to rent a room from Idealis this academic year, concludes Ingrid Hijman, head of the Student Service Centre.

• Build more student rooms on campus

  Student – 12 October 2017 09:49-WUR should cater for the influx of students by building more housing on campus, decided the municipal council this week.