Abstract
Increasing the energy efficiency of the housing stock has been one of the largest challenges of the built environment in the Netherlands in recent decades. Parallel with the energy transition there is an ongoing revaluation of the architectural quality of pre-war residential buildings. In the past, urban renewal was traditionally based on demolition and replacement with new buildings. This has changed to the improvement of old buildings through renovation. Housing corporations developed an approach for the deep renovation of their housing stock in the period 1995–2015. The motivation to renovate buildings varied, but the joint pattern that emerged was quality improvement of housing in cities, focusing particularly on energy efficiency, according to project data files from the NRP institute (Platform voor Transformatie en Renovatie). However, since 2015 the data from the federation of Amsterdam-based housing associations AFWC (Amsterdamse Federatie Woningcorporaties) has shown the transformation of pre-war walk-up apartment buildings has stagnated. The sales of units are slowing down, except in pre-war neighbourhoods. Housing associations have sold their affordable housing stock of pre-war property in Amsterdam inside the city’s ring road. The sales revenue was used to build new affordable housing far beyond the ring road. This study highlights the profound influence of increasing requirements established by the European Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) and the revised Housing Act of 1 July 2015, for the renovation of the pre-war housing stock. The transformation process to climate-neutral neighbourhoods inside the ring road is slowing down because of new property owners, making a collective heat network difficult to realize; furthermore, segregation of residents is appearing in Amsterdam.
Highlights
The main research questions are: What was the successful approach to renovation in the period 1995–2015? What is the influence of the European regulations Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) on the renovation stagnation in Amsterdam? How is the renovation stagnation influenced by national legislation? What is the cause of the increase in living expenses, such as rent and energy costs? What are the consequences for housing associations from these developments? [11]
The method that was applied in this research is a survey of annual statistics provided by the federation of housing associations of Amsterdam, Amsterdamse Federatie Woningcoporaties (AFWC), about their housing stock and tenants, and annual project data files provided by the institute NRP (Platform voor Transformatie en Renovatie) about deep renovation projects
Another important source is the annual statistics about the housing stock and tenants, which are provided by the AFWC
Summary
Increasing the energy efficiency of the housing stock has been one of the largest challenges in the built environment of the Netherlands and many other countries in recent decades. The maximum primary fossil energy use in kWh/m2 usable floor space a year is the second indicator, and thirdly, the minimal fraction of renewable energy as a per centage. In the period 1995–2015 the reduction of carbon emission in relation to geopolitics was already an ambition [6], but the life cycle of buildings or building components and the carbon footprint were not considered. At this time there was only a focus on the energy efficiency of buildings [7]. This challenge resulted in all kinds of renovation programs of the existing housing stock of housing associations in the Netherlands and living expenses have increased for tenants
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