Rotterdam will not permanently close the airport for homes and parks | Throwing

AP Productions | source: AP

Rotterdam

The Rotterdam City Council certainly does not plan to close Rotterdam The Hague Airport (RTHA) in the long term and build 10,000 new homes on this site and create a city park. Five parties (GroenLinks, PvdA, SP, Party for the Animals and ChristenUnie) have come up with a plan to close in 2021 in order to make room for the great need for new homes, clean air and green spaces in the city.

The decision was not a surprise. The current coalition agreement states that coalition parties Liveable Rotterdam, D66, VVD and DENK want to keep the airport open. “We are doing this partly in light of the very recent opinion poll Rotterdam, which shows that two-thirds of Rotterdam residents think it is important that Rotterdam has an airport. We will therefore not be taking any initiatives to close it,” wrote the mayor and alderman on the council.

The council acknowledges that there is an urgent need for new homes, but believes there is enough space elsewhere in the city to build the required minimum of 50,000 homes in the coming decades. Moreover, according to the committee, the costs of purchasing the land from RTHA are very high, because the land has been issued to the airport on a long lease until 2050. Several private companies have already been set up in the target area, and all of them must be purchased.

According to the airport, it won’t be more crowded than usual next summer. There are no additional slots available for airlines. RTHA reported last week that most of the available slots were used in the winter and the remaining unused slots were not carried over from winter to summer.

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