Brussels residents living near Tour & Taxis are opposing a large-scale housing project called Lake Side, criticising it for telling a "highly misleading story about affordable housing."
Lake Side comprises 16 buildings, including several tall towers, that will be used for housing, offices and shops. Among them is an impressive 127-metre residential tower with more than 700 apartments on a total surface area of approximately 96,000m².
The project will be built on a compact plot between the park and the Brussels Environment building. The public inquiry for the project's building permit will run until 6 March. According to Nextensa, project developer for the Tour & Taxis site, 24% of the apartments in this project would be part of an affordable housing scheme. Additionally, 61 social housing units would be created.
However, the urban association BRAL has been following this dossier for years and, together with IEB, Bonnevie and other local committees, has gathered information about the project – especially the 61 social housing units.
BRAL posed questions about these figures: 10.5% of these are the promised social housing units that they offer to the Brussels Government, and the other half are subsidised housing units. "Are these social housing units then offered to the government at the market price? What kind of 'offer' is that?"
A sham manoeuvre?
Park Lane was the first phase of Tour & Taxis and has already been built. Here too, the Brussels Government was given an "offer" to purchase social housing units. But as the government had no budget, the social housing units were never built. As a result, there are no social housing units on Park Lane.
"Do we see the same sham manoeuvre here at Lake Side?" BRAL asks. In the agreement with the Brussels Government, Nextensa is instructed to bring subsidised housing units onto the market, which must be offered at a price below the market price. "But here too, this concerns a modest number, some of which do not really have to be offered at that lower price."
BRAL therefore argues that the 24% affordable housing figure is "extremely misleading" and asserts that it "may never come". On top of this, "another part is subsidised housing that will be very close to the expensive market price."
Credit: Inter-Environnement Bruxelles (IEB)
The organisation added that the Brussels Regional Government introduced its Special Zoning Plan (BBP) in 2017, which imposes few requirements in the context of affordable housing and allows for enormous building volumes.
"By doing this, it gave the developer a huge gift," stressed BRAL. "However, the needs of the surrounding neighbourhoods in terms of housing are known, so why was the opportunity not seized to create an urban project tailored to the neighbourhood?"
'Affordable' housing
Meanwhile, residents of the Maritime District Committee have launched a petition opposing the large-scale project, which so far has over 2,500 signatures. "The residents and users of the maritime district were not involved in the plans for this project. Lake Side is not at all rooted in the district and does not take its reality into account. It also does not offer a concrete answer to the affordable housing crisis."
For BRAL, the conclusion is clear: there is no certainty of social housing at Tour & Taxis. "And anyone who dares to claim that a quarter of the homes on this site will be affordable has a very broad definition of the term."
Therefore, the Maritime District Committee hopes to have some influence on the project with its petition and is calling for a plan "on a human scale" with fewer tall buildings and less density, affordable and social housing, more consultation with citizens and the preservation of green spaces.
