Located at Heresingel 32-34-36, the Rikkers-Lubbers house was turned into temporary student housing in August of 2018. There are currently 56 students of various nationalities living there. The building’s neighbours were unhappy with the arrangement from the beginning: they complained of excessive noise, loud garden parties until late at night, trash left out on the sidewalk, and sloppily parked bikes.
They were angriest about the fact that city should never have allowed students to move into the house at the Heresingel in the first place: the neighbourhood had already reached it maximum percentage of student residences allowed. The neighbours filed an official complaint with the city and the committee tasked with assessing it has now ruled that the complaint is valid.
Solution
The neighbours are ‘very relieved’, says Truus van den Brink, who lives behind the Rikkers-Lubbers house with her husband Ed. ‘Although we wonder what’s going to happen next. We all know how hard it is to find student housing in Groningen.’
Until further notice, the students are allowed to stay at the house, a city spokesperson told weblog Sikkom. No one knows how long they’ll be allowed to stay exactly, although the city is hoping to ‘find a solution in the short term’.
Wait and see
Van den Brink doesn’t seem to have much faith in anything being done in the short term. She doesn’t expect building owner Schove Groep to be very proactive, not to mention the residents. ‘They have a roof over their heads, so unless they were already planning to leave, they probably won’t try very hard to find a different place to live.’
The students were only made aware of the permit being cancelled when they read about it on Sikkom; no one had told them anything. In fact, since the whole thing started, no one involved ever properly informed them of what was happening. ‘I guess the only thing we can do is wait and see if StudentStay [the rental company, Ed.] tells us anything, or if the city informs us’, resident Oliver Horstmann says. ‘And pray that bureaucracy goes as slowly as usual.’