“Industrial construction? Our urban planners want brick.”

Tim van Ee of TNO investigated why it takes an average of more than ten years to develop housing plans in the Netherlands. “That’s not normal,” he says. His advice? “Learn from countries like Sweden and Hong Kong.”

“Why are housing factories idle half the time? And why does it take so long to draw up plans? Objection procedures? Complicated rules? It must be more complex than that,” suspects Tim van Ee, a consultant specializing in digitization in industrial and modular housing construction at TNO.

He wants to get to the bottom of things and sets out to investigate. This spring, he published a report titled “Accelerating the Planning Phase in Housing Projects.” In Utrecht, during the recording of the Bureau Stoer podcast, the 33-year-old consultant discusses his findings and recommendations from the report, together with Nicole Maarsen, an expert in real estate and area development.

“The world record for the planning phase? Twenty years, maybe,” Van Ee responds. Nicole Maarsen nods thoughtfully. She, too, can’t give an exact answer. “But,” she says, “it’s not normal that it takes an average of ten years or longer before construction begins. It’s as if we’ve come to accept that as normal. We’re all just parroting each other. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

An uncomfortable truth

Van Ee is 33. He, too, refuses to accept the uncomfortable truth that it is precisely the preliminary phase of housing projects that takes so much time. Many of his friends are unable to find a place to live. And despite all the attention given to the issue and the measures that have been put in place, he sees the average processing time not decreasing, but rather increasing.

For his research, he interviewed urban planners, builders, and government officials who are busy building homes or drawing up plans. His analysis shows, among other things, that the Quality Assurance Act, which took effect in 2024, is causing delays. Even promising initiatives such as parallel planning are still far from always yielding the desired results.

“Change takes time,” Maarsen explains.

Waterfall model

Van Ee believes there is room for improvement on numerous fronts. For example, by standardizing regulations. The planning phase itself can be organized more efficiently. “Right now, we do everything sequentially (in a specific order). We carry out all the work and research one after the other. Like a waterfall model.”

“That’s not practical,” the two conclude. Because construction costs rise every year, and municipalities and other government agencies are adjusting their policies. Maarsen adds, “If you shorten the preliminary phase from ten years to three, it creates so much value.”

Both also believe that “the government” could give industrial construction a little more of a boost. “In that regard, the Netherlands could learn from countries like Sweden and Hong Kong. There, factory-based construction is already much more the norm,” says Van Ee.

Encourage industrial construction

Maarsen is curious about those examples. She, too, believes that the national government should do more to encourage industrial construction. She’s not alone in this view, by the way. Bram van Rijt (vice president of Modulair Nederland) and Marieke Mentink, CEO of Plegt-Vos, have also been pushing for this for some time.

But there’s more to be gained: “Builders and area developers should also learn to understand each other even better,” says Maarsen. She, too, sees many market players and government agencies getting bogged down in Dutch regulations. “We have so many rules that we’ve lost sight of the goal. We don’t need fewer rules, but the rules do need to be better coordinated with one another.”

According to the two, industrial construction is already being taken more seriously than it was, say, five years ago. Yet there are still some municipalities that aren’t on board when it comes to factory-built housing. Van Ee: “A municipal representative said, ‘Industrial construction? We’re not even going to get started on that. Our urban planners don’t like that at all. They want brick.’”

Curious about the whole story? Then listen to Bureau Stoer, Episode 41: “Industrial construction? Our urban planners want brick.”

Be sure to check out these episodes of Bureau Stoer on industrial construction:

• Plegt-Vos’s brand-new female CEO is passionate about industrial construction: “Quality and affordability do go hand in hand.”
• Modular home builders: “We’ll get the permit later—let’s start building sooner.”
• Dura Vermeer’s digital housing factory never stops: “Increase the volume, and the price can drop significantly.”
• “Factory builders shouldn’t be at each other’s throats—they should work together.”
• New housing factory is both biobased and high-tech: “Revolutionary”