Geachte mensen,
Zoals eerder gepubliceerd op deze lijst, vond onze
rechtzaak plaats op dinsdag 1 maart. De eigenaar - De
Dageraad - vroeg om een vervroegde uitspraak zodat wij
ook op dinsdag 8 maart ontruimd kan worden. Geen
verassing: op donderdag 3 maart leerden we van de
rechter dat we inderdaad eruit moeten zijn voor
dinsdag. Drie dagen om een nieuwe woning te vinden,
-hartelijke bedankt- mevrouw rechter.
Extra belachelijk als je de leegstand voorgeschiedenis
van onze woningen beschouwt. Om alles verder te kunnen
uitleggen voeg ik (een onderdeel van) onze uitgebreide
pleidooi bij. Bevat ook informatie over de toekomstige
plannen van de Dageraad in de Indische Buurt
(Amsterdam Oost) - veel asociale samenvoegen
natuurlijk. Dit is de Engelse versie, .txt format om
de document klein genoeg voor deze lijst te houden.
Een Nederlandse versie bestaat wel maar de vertaling
laat veel te wensen over en we zijn ermee bezig om een
betere vertaling te (laten) maken. Laat me weten als
je de (betere!) Nederlandse versie wilt.
Ik ben persoonlijk van plan om verdere kritische
onderzoek te doen over de plannen van de Dageraad in
de Indische Buurt, trouwens.
S
__________________________________
Celebrate Yahoo!'s 10th Birthday!
Yahoo! Netrospective: 100 Moments of the Web
http://birthday.yahoo.com/netrospective/
Maandag 28 November 2004
Dear members of the court.
Our defence will comprise a number of broad areas. We will
combine our technical, legal defence, which I know the court is
eager to hear, with personal and political arguments. We have
never made any secret of the fact that personal and political
motivations have been of the utmost importance to us. We began
our time living in Borneostraat 72hs and 72.I with a political
letter of explanation to our new neighbours. Our first personal
communication with the Dageraad was fiercely political. And we
stand today by those convictions. The fact that we did not reply
to the Dageraad's 'oprotbrief' of February 15th does not, as is
implied by page 6 of their dagvaarding, indicate an absence of
interest. Rather, that was based on a communication mix-up on
our behalf; we have (on multiple occasions) more than adequately
demonstrated our willingness to engage and co-operate with the
Dageraad. At any rate, we are hear today, and we have plenty to
say.
In fact, let us begin with the personal and political
motivations, before we move onto the technical/legal aspects.
Now, we understand that you ultimately want to know why an owner
with a samenvoegingsvergunning, a bouwvergunning, and an
agreement with an aanneemer should not be allowed to legally
proceed with their building work. We'll get to that. But first,
let us describe the personal and political convictions, which
are themselves somewhat intertwined with the technical/legal
justifications discussed later.
The background: a long history of neglect by the Dageraad
We squatted these two woningen on Sunday 28th November 2004. At
this time, both 72hs and 72.I had stood at least a year empty, a
fact supported by the Officier van Justitie's letter of 20
Januari 2005 which states that the owner of the property (the
Dageraad) had made no attempt to claim a "Section 429" against
us. (A Section 429 squat is one that occurs before a property
has been empty a year.) Indeed, as the Dageraad itself admits,
werkzaamheden - which began shortly after the eviction of
previous squatters in Juni 2003 - quickly stopped, a suspension
that the Dageraad says was due to a disagreement with the
contractor Onrust. And, when we squatted the woningen on Sunday
28th November, more than a year had passed since that
disagreement, a year in which those woningen had stood silent
and unused. So, when the Dageraad says that is wishes to resume
work urgently, you should remember that essentially the only
thing they did with these woningen during that year is seal them
off with heavy duty metal shielding ("Sitex"), an indication (in
most cases) that long-term abandonment is likely.
Further, one should note that the Dageraad's failure to act
quickly with Borneostraat 72hs and 72.I during 2003 and 2004 was
not unprecedented. In fact, the Dageraad has had a history of
inactivity with especially 72hs, reaching back to at least 2001.
(We note that neither woning has had a huurvergunning in many
years; according to Dienst Wonen 72.I
has had no huurvergunning since Feburary 2000!) Prior to us, the
last occupants of 72hs were also squatters, who squatted 72hs in
2002 because it had then - in 2002 - already stood empty for at
least a year. So, in other words, 72hs has - since it was
acquired by the Dageraad in 1999 - spent years and years empty,
and the Dageraad has already forfeited several chances to bring
the property back into use. This leads us to place the greatest
emphasis on the fact that the case before you today is a kort
geding, a type of court case that is only supposed to be used in
the context of genuine urgency. To the best of our knowledge,
the Dageraad used a kort geding against the previous squatters,
yet - as we show in due course by referring to paragraph 4 of
their dagvaarding - the Dageraad itself has admitted that
working on Borneostraat 72hs and 72.I has been a low priority
for them. We question, in this context, whether - given this
history of lethargy on behalf of the Dageraad - it is realistic
for them to claim, once again, that the situation is urgent and
thus warrants a kort geding.
Please hold that at the forefront of your thoughts as we
proceed.
So, we squatted on November 28th 2004. For the sake of accuracy,
let me stress that date, because the Dageraad's evidence wrongly
suggests that we squatted the woningen on approximately 7th
November, three weeks earlier. That's worth mentioning because,
if Onrust did indeed send the Dageraad a new budget calculation
on 2nd November, then the fact that they had not performed their
subsequent inspection by the time we had squatted - almost a
month after the new calculation had been received - indicates
again the striking lack of urgency with which the Dageraad
performs its tasks.
Personal, political motivation
Now, our personal story is probably not so unusual, but we feel
it is important to mention, to highlight the human dimension of
this case. As we told our neighbours on the day we squatted the
houses, we would love it if we didn't have to go squatting! We
would love it if we had a secure, affordable rental contract. We
would love it, if both our Woningnet inschrijvingen were not
stuck somewhere in the middle of a seemingly unending waiting
list. But, as you and I know, the 7+ year wait for an
affordable, secure huurwoning in Amsterdam ensures that an
enormous number of Amsterdam residents have no other option but
to seek accommodation through less official methods. And we have
both experienced what that means. That means a procession of
insecure, expensive, and often exploitative periods in (for
example) onderhuur. As I'm sure most of you know, this is a
deeply unpleasant, essentially humiliating experience, made
worse by the bizarre assumption by bureaucrats that everybody
has a permanent contract, and that onderhuurders are enemies of
the system rather than victims of it. If we are evicted we will
once again be forced to rely on desperate means to put a roof
over our head.
In November 2004, we said "enough!". No more exploitation, no
more hiding from the Zoeklicht. We squatted the unused
appartments Borneostraat 72hs and 72.I and, in doing
so, we made the list of woningzoekenden in Amsterdam a little
smaller that day. This city has an absurd housing problem, which
politicians seem incapable of fixing, and in this context the
abandonment of living space (as in this case) for more than year
is utterly unjustifiable. As you may or may not know, squatting
is about tackling that injustice head-on. It is about elevating
the right of people to have secure, affordable accommodation
above the right of building-owners to leave their property
empty, whether through neglect or - even worse - for reasons of
speculation. So, whenever squatters see a potential living space
being unused, it will be squatted, whether it is a never-used
office complex (of which there is much in Amsterdam!), an old
shop, or a Dageraad woning. Squatting will keep on happening,
and squatters will resist firmly and come to court time and time
and time again, because it is in our politics to stand up for
what we believe in.
Beyond the leegstand status of our two woningen, we also have
some major political problems with the Dageraad's wider plans
for our block. The samenvoeging of 72hs and 72.I will function,
apparently, as a 'pilot' project for the rest of our block,
itself a contribution to the 355 samenvoegings projects that
will ultimately be undertaken. That is: many other
begane-gronden and 1-hoogs in our block will ultimately be
samengevoegd, a renovation which - according to several sources,
including the Dageraad's Voorraadbeheerplan itself (p.45) - will
not take place until (at the earliest) 20071. In addition to
technical/legal objections, which we will address in due course,
we have a strong political objection to this wider, whole-block
samenvoeging project.
We elaborate. In a letter to us, dated 14 januari (included as
evidence), the Dageraad explained that about 15% of the 'new',
larger appartments will have a free-market rent, and that the
rest will remain in the regulated rent system. So, in the "best"
case, these new, larger woningen will have a higher rent that it
'social' in name only; in the worst case, these woningen will
have a vogel-vrij free-market rent. Before considering the wider
ramifications of such a policy, we note with considerable
concern that - as far as Borneostraat 72hs and 72.I are
concerned - the Dageraad appears in this context to be running
the risk of violating the conditions of its
samenvoegingsvergunning. The samenvoegingsvergunning states that
the new appartment must be "een grotere en betaalbare woning",
and remain so for 10 years. (Emphasis added.) As far as we
understand, and can ascertain from the Dageraad's own
Vooraadbeheerplan, betaalbaar in this context is a technical
term which applies to rent-controlled (i.e. not free-market)
huurwoningen. Yet, in the aforementioned letter of 14 januari,
the Dageraad's advocaat states, "Of de onderhavige samen te
voegen woning in de vrije markt en wel de sociale markt zal
komen is thans nog niet bekend." We point this out both because
of our concerns about the afbraak of affordable, controlled-rent
housing, and also as a further indication that the Dageraad's
ability to stick to its promises is perhaps not quite so strong
as they would have us believe.
But let's return to the wider context of samenvoeging projects
occurring throughout the whole block. If you consider that these
fewer, less affordable appartments will be created by destroying
smaller, more affordable appartments, the effect will be
doubly-negative for those who either cannot afford, or
(reasonably enough) do not want to have to afford, ludicrously
high rents. (Not to mention, of course, the distinct possibility
that these woningen will one day be sold - something the
Dageraad would, I'm sure, love to do under different
circumstances - and be effectively lost from any meaningful form
of social control.)
In its Voorraadbeheerplan, the formerly socialist Dageraad has
put forward a detailed justification for this policy of removing
affordable appartments at the expense of more expensive ones.
Indeed, like many other advocates of this policy, the Dageraad
(and, of course, many politicians) has somehow managed to
decorate this damaging afbraak with a sophisticated
pseudo-socialist justification, in which concepts such
doorstromen, scheefwonen and an excess of inexpensive affordable
rental appartments assume central importance. The Dageraad and
its colleagues may genuinely have good intentions, and may
genuinely want to rejuvenate the Indische Buurt, but that in
itself means nothing; often the most damaging and inhuman
policies are carried out precisely by those people who believe
intensely that their activities are just and correct. The
Dageraad's repeated stress on the need to diversify the woning
composition of the Indische Buurt is essentially based on the
idea that the Indische Buurt can be rejuvenated by creating
islands of personal wealth (i.e. more expensive woningen) inside
this largely low-income neighborhood.
Interesting idea. The idea is that the Indische Buurt can become
hip and trendy, a sort of replication of the Pijp's success, by
limiting the amount of space that less desirable, poorer people
have to live in, and increasing the amount of space for more
economically desirable and dynamic people. Now, the Dageraad can
claim that this will make the area more economically attractive,
that it will facilitate intra-Indische Buurt mobility, that it
will facilitate doorstromen, and so on. But is housing, after
all, really so different from other rights-based public services
such as health and education? The parallel with doorstromen in
those sectors would be the dubious idea that it is better for
everyone if the wealthier are allowed to privately buy their own
health or education; "it frees up the social system for the
poor," some might say, just as doorstromen now is about making
more expensive accommodation for scheefwoners to move into. But
then the companies and institutions providing those services
will "cream skim":- they will focus on the wealthiest clients,
the most low-risk clients, because it is not in their interest
to damage (or 'pollute') their profits or income streams by
'cross-subsidising' poor, high-risk and otherwise undesirable
clients. In other words: in the current political climate, more
expensive woningen will ultimately only serve the wealthy and
lead to the further afbraak of economic solidarity between
different wealth classes.
Rather than samenvoeging the whole block, we maintain that the
Dageraad should
maintain the present affordable structure of the block, and
renovate it well, but soberly. Just like they should have done,
and should still do, with our woningen.
Technical/legal motivation
Now, that is probably enough politics for now. You may be asking
yourself what the technical and legal justification is for our
case. Without prejudice to the arguments above, we want to
convince you that it is neither necessary nor likely that the
Dageraad speedily begins with renovations after removing us.
(Recall that a kort geding should only be used in urgent cases.)
Firstly, we described, at the beginning of this defence, the
fact that - over the last four years - the Dageraad has
repeatedly neglected Borneostraat 72; it has left it empty,
shown little concern for it, has been happy to sit back and let
its bouwvergunning - originally issued at the beginning of 2003
- sleep through the years.
Indeed, even if some kind of building work does begin on March
14th, what are the chances that the work, sometime in the near
future, suddenly gets suspended again, and that the whole woning
again gets covered in Sitex? Indeed, given the history of this
pand, it sometimes looks as though the Dageraad has, at times,
been sorely tempted to let it stand empty until the next
scheduled renovations at the end of the decade. The Dageraad
explicitly demonstrates in paragraph 4 of the Dagvaarding that
such indifference, motivated by the relative financial
insignificance of the project relative to larger projects, has
indeed been a direct factor in their decision to let the
appartment stand empty for so long:
"Omdat het hier bovendien ging om een relatief klein project
(zeker in vergelijking met de overige projecten die staan
gepland om de worden uitgevoerd of al zijn of worden uitgevoerd
en waarbij het dikwijls gaat om tientallen woningen), heeft de
Dageraad haar aandacht en mankracht meer aan laatstgenomede
projected moeten besteden en verliepen de onderhandelingen over
de uit te voeren werkzaamheden en de aanneemsom traag."
Furthermore, it is not definite that the next scheduled
renovations on this block - perhaps 2007 or 2008-10 depending on
which source is cited - will either happen on time, or actually
happen at all. (We spoke to the Informatiecentrum Stedelijke
Vernieuwing Indische Buurt on februari 21st , 2005 to determine
when the next renovations on our block are due. This centre,
which serves as the principle source of renovation information
for people in our neighbourhood, gave us the 2008-10 figure.)
Having recently (eind-februari 2005) spoken to the Afdeling
Woon- en Bouwen Toezicht (Zeeburg) we know that there have been
no relevant samenvoeging or bouwvergunning requests submitted,
something which would obviously have to be done to allow the
wider samenvoegingsproject to go ahead. Are we going to be
evicted to make way for a pilot
for a project which is still technically uncertain?
Further, what exactly will happen with the pilot project once it
is completed? We can imagine two principle scenarios, both of
which give us cause for concern.
Will it be a purely 'technical pilot' in the sense that it will
be examined to assess technical and structural feasibility, but
will not in the near future be used as living space? (For
example, the Dageraad may decide to only start renting it out
after the wider renovations in the block are completed.) If the
samengevoegd property will only be used for technical analysis,
and will not function even as a public showroom, then this
strikes us as a somewhat dubious strategy. If the pilot project
is purely technical, would it not be better to perform such an
analysis nearer the time of the (already scheduled) wider block
renovations, and in doing so keep the space as a living space
for longer? The other scenario we can imagine, should the
samengevoegd property not be rented out, is that it will
function as a public showroom. The desirability and urgency of
such a showroom is questionable, given that:- the decision to
samenvoegen in the blok has clearly already been taken; that the
building will spend 99% of its time empty; and that visitors to
the showroom will be looking at an experimental model of
woningen that may only become available at the end of the
decade, in a potentially very different rental market.
Alternatively: Working on the assumption that there falls a
period of time between the finishing of this 'pilot' and the
beginning of the wider samenvoegingsproject, and referring to
the Dageraad's statement that it does not plan to sell our
woning (see the februari 14 letter), is the Dageraad going to
rent it out the property, assuming that it will not be a
leegstand showroom? Is not clear to us that the Dageraad will
immediately want to put a high-rent paying, permanent huurder in
a house that will soon be disturbed by radical samenvoegings
renovations along the whole block. For this reason we suspect
that, in the event that the Dageraad does rent out the new
woning, it will use tijdelijke huurders to fill the space, for
an extended length of time. Should this be so, we highlight once
again that we, the present bewoners of Borneostraat 72hs and
72.I, have on multiple occasions offered to enter into a formal
renting relationship with the Dageraad, and that such offers
have always been ignored. To evict us, and then (after
renovation) to insert tijdelijke huurders, will be (in light of
our repeated offer) faintly ridiculous, and indicate that the
Dageraad would rather remove strong (but reasonable!) bewoners
such as us for more easy-to-manipulate tijdelijke huurders.
Thus, we suspect that, whether the samengevoegd 72hs and 72.I
are used as living space or not, the chance is high that their
use in the coming years - at least until 2007 - will be a weak
justification for our eviction.
In conclusion
We would like to now summarise our main arguments.
A recent history of neglect which undermines the Dageraad's
credibility about the urgency of the current renovations.
Borneostraat 72hs has now been squatted (at least) twice since
2001, on each occasion because the place has been left empty by
the Dageraad for at least a year. In other words: the Dageraad
has already wasted several chances to renovate these appartments.
The Dageraad's own admission that the 2003-2004 leegstand of the
house was because the house did not figure highly in their
current plans.
A kort geding was used to evict the previous squatters, but
clearly (see previous point) the project was not quite so urgent
as perhaps claimed. Given this fact, and considerations about
the role of the 'pilot' once it is finished (see below), it is
highly questionable whether a kort geding is the appropriate
legal device in this case.
The fact that, when we squatted the appartments, they were
sealed with heavy metal plating ("Sitex"), a common sign of
abandonment.
The fact that, throughout the whole of November 2004, the
Dageraad had failed to perform a technical inspection of
Borneostraat 72hs and 72.I, despite having (apparently) received
new documents from Onrust at the beginning of November. It is of
course difficult to say for certain, but the Dageraad only
seemed to become interested in performing this inspection once
we had squatted the woningen.
Given that whole-block renovations are scheduled for several
years in the future (2007 at the earliest, we believe, perhaps
2008-10), and the recent history of de-prioritising the
renovation of these houses, there is a chance that - as the
Dageraad has probably intended on earlier occasions - the
woningen will again be neglected until the next block-wide
renovation.
Inconsistencies in the Dageraad's arguments and positions.
Whether accidental or not, the false claim that the woningen
were squatted on or around November 7th hides the important
point (mentioned above) that the Dageraad failed to perform a
technical inspection throughout the whole of November 2004.
Also, the new possibility, in potential violation of the
samenvoegingsvergunning, that - once samengevoegd - Borneostraat
72hs and 72.I do not remain in the regulated rent system.
Lack of clarity about what will happen to the 'pilot' project
once finished, and - indeed - whether the block-wide
samenvoeging project will actually go ahead.
The absence, to date, of any requests for
bouw/samenvoegingsvergunningen
for the rest of the block. (And the chance that, in the future,
such permits will not be granted.)
Given that the block-wide samenvoegings project is scheduled for
some years in the future, there are doubts about the immediate
necessity of the 'pilot' project, and also fears that the pilot
project will stand (essentially) unused for several years.
If the Dageraad plans to use tijdelijke huurders to fill the
pilot after it is completed, why does the Dageraad need to evict
us so forcefully? We have made, on several occasions, a very
reasonable offer to enter into a formal renting agreement (under
the appropriate conditions.) But we have always been ignored.
Personal reasons.
We need a place to live. We are tired of being exploited on the
unofficial Amsterdam woning market. If evicted, we will once
again have to resort to desperate measures to find space. A
rapid eviction will be particularly damaging because there is no
guarantee that we will have enough time to find new
accommodation.
Political reasons.
A protest against the absurd nature of the Amsterdam housing
situation. A protest that, in this situation, properties can be
left empty for more than a year. A protest that the housing
policies of the Dageraad (and others) will ultimately only serve
the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Afmelden, e-mail: kraken-post-unsubscribe@dvxs.nl
Opnieuw aanmelden: kraken-post-subscribe@dvxs.nl
Faq: kraken-post-faq@dvxs.nl
Website: http://krakenpost.nl
[07 Mar 09:00u]: 266 abonnees + 307 niet-abonnees
--------------------------------------------------------------
ontvangsttijd Mon Mar 07 08:10:09 2005
Dit document staat op krakenpost.nl
voor de huidige en 11 maanden
het origineel blijft op skwot.dvxs.nl:
http://dvxs.nl/~skwot/{jaar}/{maand}/{nnnn}.html
kop