*T***his is what the mayor and aldermen say in a letter to the town council.The structural outlook will specify the kind of housing that is required, the key building locations and the order in which development should take place. The mayor and aldermen are considering housing with a ‘trans-regional character’ for Dreijen.
Standstill
Plans for the Dreijen quarter have been at a standstill for some time. In January 2010 the town council pulled the plug on the plans on the table at that time. A particular obstacle was the plan to build on part of the Small Arboretum. The new municipal executive returned to the issue a year ago but there have been no further developments since then. That is partly due to the stagnating market, limited building quotas and the interpretation of the new Town and Country Planning Act. Any new residential district will be built in stages, whatever is decided.
Not in a hurry
Wageningen UR spokesman Simon Vink does not see the delay in the planning process as a major problem. ‘We are not in a hurry. It was the council that wanted to speed up the planning process. But they haven’t been very successful so far.’ The last science groups are scheduled to move to campus some time in 2015, and some of the university buildings may need to be kept in use for even longer because of the spectacular growth in the number of students. The student population is forecast to increase to 9,000 in 2016.