In Amsterdam, hotel construction is regulated by new rules
The authorities in Amsterdam have introduced new rules to regulate the tourist industry. The Dutch capital now has laws in place to limit the construction of hotels. The city council wants to preserve the city’s image without overloading it with new buildings.
Under the new rules, developers have the right to build a hotel if:
– at least one hotel in the city has closed;
– the new hotel must be more environmentally friendly than the one that closed;
– the new hotel must have the same number of beds as the old one;
– the development is outside the city centre.
The new regulations aim to reduce the number of overnight stays in the Dutch capital. The local authorities want to reduce the number of bookings to 20 million per year. By comparison, the number of overnight stays in 2023 will be around 20.7 million. However, experts have greeted such an initiative with extreme scepticism. First of all, there is the question of the actual steps towards achieving the target. The municipality has not yet presented a plan to reduce the number of room bookings. Some analysts believe that the authorities of Amsterdam may increase the tourist tax.
Property market overview
Like the rest of the country, the capital’s property market has not yet recovered from the rise in interest rates. Against this backdrop, secondary housing prices increased significantly in 2022-2023. Moreover, this trend has continued in the current period. At the beginning of 2024, costs in this sector increased by 1.8% compared to the same months in 2023.
The secondary housing market peaked in the summer of 2022. After July, house prices started to fall gradually, but not for long. Prices started to rise again in the summer of 2023.
According to the national land register, in January 2024 there were around 14.5 thousand contracts of sale registered in the Netherlands. This figure is 10% higher than at the beginning of 2023. At the same time, the average transaction value was 433.3 thousand euros.
The Dutch government is concerned about the rise in prices on the market and is trying to tighten regulation. The authorities have announced a possible tightening of rules for the rental housing sector. Minister Hugo de Jonge says the likely steps include:
– increasing the number of properties subject to rent control;
– improving the affordability of rents for a number of sectors, such as police officers and teachers;
– raising the maximum rent to 1123 euros per month from the current 879 euros.
The increase in the number of properties that will be under control will be around 113,000. Dwellings in this category will have a fixed rate regulated by the government. At the same time, the owners of 300,000 houses and flats will have to reduce the rates for their tenants.