The local authority in the Dutch capital has already scrapped 800,000 m[sup]2[/sup] of planned office space, alderman Maarten van Poelgeest revealed during the one-day PropertyNL Forum in Amsterdam last Thursday. Poelgeest, a leading member of green left GroenLinks party, announced shortly after taking charge of the planning department last year that he wanted to cut 30% of the planned office development.
The local authority in the Dutch capital has already scrapped 800,000 m2 of planned office space, alderman Maarten van Poelgeest revealed during the one-day PropertyNL Forum in Amsterdam last Thursday. Poelgeest, a leading member of green left GroenLinks party, announced shortly after taking charge of the planning department last year that he wanted to cut 30% of the planned office development.
He wrote to project managers and district councils in late September requesting they identify 1.2 mln m2 of office space in development plans that could be replaced by housing and other construction projects. He based his decision on research that showed 18.5% of existing office space in the city was vacant at the beginning of 2006. City planners estimated the capital will 'in the most favourable scenario' need a maximum of 1.5 mln m2 of new office space until 2030. But by the start of 2006 some 4.5 mln m2 of new office space was on the drawing board.
Van Poelgeest told Forum chairman René J. Buck, president of Buck Consultants International, that so far 800,000 m2 will not go ahead. Often this relates to plans which the developer also had doubts about. The remaining 400,000 m2 will will be more difficult as some of the developers have voiced opposition to cancelling the projects. Prospective end-users have already been identified for 10-15% of the space. The alderman said he hoped to be in position to present the results of his initiative to the city council in March or April.