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The environment of Dutch housing associations is changing rapidly. These social landlords are faced with various problems, such as disturbance in the housing market, the complexity of inner city regeneration and a considerable growth in the number of elderly people. To deal with these problems, housing associations are obliged to deploy their existing resources and develop new ones. For that purpose they are increasingly forced to co-operate with other partners. As a consequence organizations become more and more involved in networks and their boundaries are blurring. However, using the term "network: probably raises more questions than it answers. What is a "network" and why are they coming into existence? To understand these developments this paper will examine the theory of network building. It aims to answer the following two research questions: (i) What is the structure of a network? and (ii) Which new competences can be developed in such a network? After a short introduction to Dutch housing associations and their scope of activities in the first section, the paper discusses the "resource based approach" in general and the concept of "core competences" in particular as part of the network-theory. It then discusses the different forms of co-operation in the network of organizations. The case of Trudo is used to illustrate how a housing association is able to take on new challenges after developing several core competences in new forms of co-operation with several stakeholders in its network. Finally, some concluding remarks and suggestions for further research are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amsterdam's housing market is dominated by the social-rented sector. It comprises 56 per cent of the total housing stock, while home ownership comprises only 19 per cent, lower than anywhere else in the Netherlands, and among the lowest in the world. Central government policy is currently seeking to increase the share of home ownership in the Netherlands from 53 per cent (2001) to 65 per cent in 2010. This paper will summarise recent national and local (Amsterdam) housing policy developments, focusing on the recent practice of selling social housing in Amsterdam. Unlike the Right to Buy scheme in Britain, the Netherlands employs an 'offer to buy' strategy. Sales, however, have been disappointing so far. Two factors were found to be crucial in this regard: (1) the sluggish change in 'policy mentality' and bureaucracy and (2) the high prices in the home ownership market. By way of conclusion, the paper reflects on the desirability of shifting the tenure structure from tenancy to ownership and on the risks that an (over-) emphasis on home ownership may bring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010 a working party made up of Dutch civil servants suggested a tool known as the ‘National Residential Property Tax’ with the aim of strengthening the public budget. Initially, this was intended as a tenure-neutral tax for both the owner-occupier and the rented sector. However, in the 2012 Coalition Agreement between the conservatives (VVD) and the social democrats (PvdA) it was narrowed down to a levy for landlords of properties with regulated rents – and thus ended up as a specific tax largely targeted at housing associations. On the one hand, the new government was offering housing association opportunities for annual rent increases above the rate of inflation but, on the other hand, it was getting ready to cream off the extra revenue to alleviate its own budgetary problems. By 2017 this new levy will have risen to 1.7 billion euros annually. This paper explains the background to this unique Dutch housing policy instrument and presents an ex ante evaluation of the impact of the landlord levy on housing associations, commercial real estate investors and tenants. It will also offer some conclusions and policy recommendations for housing policy in the Netherlands, which could be relevant for other European countries as well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution explores the relationship between housing policy, which is the responsibility of national governments, and competition policy, including the decision on the legitimacy of state support, which is the responsibility of the European Commission (EC). The paper paints a general picture of EU policy on competition and state support and describes the Dutch social housing system. Attention then turns to the recent intervention by the European Commission in the governance of Dutch social housing and it is asked whether the factors that prompted the intervention exist in other EU member states as well. The analysis shows that this is indeed the case. It is concluded that the intervention of the EC in the Netherlands could become a precedent for other European countries, particularly for those countries that opt against a residualised social rented sector and for a competitive role of social housing providers on the housing market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Netherlands has a large and differentiated stock of social rented dwellings, forming more than 40 per cent of the total housing stock. Housing associations are by far the largest providers of housing services in this sector. Traditionally, these associations were subsidised heavily but since 1995 Dutch government has no longer directly subsidised these associations. This paper deals with changes in Dutch housing associations in a period (1988-95) characterised by government austerity, deregulation, market conformity, privatisation and promotion of home-ownership. It is explained how the housing associations were able to survive and even maintain prospects for a promising future in a political climate that threatened the social rented sector. It is clear that housing associations can now operate more independently than in the past. This is seen as a positive development, but the government is now discovering the drawbacks of complete privatisation. A firmer embedding in a public framework is considered desirable now. Recently the cabinet introduced a strengthening of public supervision. The housing associations' umbrella organisations presented their own National Housing Programme and published a business code for housing associations. A crucial issue has not been discussed so far: who will subsidise the housing investments for low-income households in periods of economic stagnation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate vulnerabilities of the built environment are increasingly recognised. Mainstreaming adaptation concerns in urban development and redevelopment projects is commonly propagated as an effective policy strategy. Adaptation mainstreaming research often studies public actors. This article investigates the adaptation practices by housing associations, in the institutional and discursive developments of the social housing domain in which they are embedded. The analytical concepts of mainstreaming and adaptation barriers are combined with the discursive-institutional policy arrangement approach to answer the question: what factors influence the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation measures in development and renovation projects in the social housing domain in the Netherlands? We conclude that anticipatory and deliberate adaptation action to date was very scarce and attention limited in the social housing domain. On the project implementation level, factors that hampered adaptation mainstreaming in housing development were limited awareness, low priority in relation to other issues, financial constraints, regulatory constraints, lacking cooperation, and no materialisation of adaptation concerns in procedures and performance agreements. On the level of the policy arrangement, adaptation is weakly institutionalized in the Dutch social housing domain. The institutionalisation of a competing 'core activities' discourse hampered the legality of climate adaptation measures and eroded financial resources, dispersing the power to mobilise them over the arrangement. Uncertainty over the meaning of the new regulations, in combination with the absence of a comprehensive regulatory framework for adaptation and the self-identified culture of risk aversion by housing associations, delimits adaptation action becoming a standard operating procedure of social housing associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market segmentation theory is based on the notion that although customers are unique they may be grouped into relatively homogeneous categories which respond in a certain manner to the supplier's marketing efforts. Despite the lack of commercial necessity for the Dutch social rented sector in meeting the demands of tenants, public objectives do compel housing associations to be efficient and effective in maintenance spending. Through customization of maintenance service delivery, the match between users' expectations and the results of maintenance may be improved. Given the limited body of knowledge with respect to preferences of target groups in maintenance of dwellings a post hoc approach is used for this purpose. A large-scale survey was conducted among tenants of large housing associations in the Netherlands. By means of respectively principal component and cluster analyses, customer segments were given shape. Profiling of these segments was achieved through ANOVA and chi-square analyses. There seem to be grounds for housing associations to differentiate, to a limited degree, in their maintenance (purchasing) policy. This, however, always depends on the applicable strategic objectives of the housing association in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]