Not wrong and not 30 years but 9 years out of date.
I still think its noteworthy, that Amsterdam had such a rule for a long time until very recently. It shows that there are precedents for how to deal with empty buildings.
I still think its noteworthy, that Amsterdam had such a rule for a long time until very recently. It shows that there are precedents for how to deal with empty buildings.
I have lived in the NL just when the change in squatting legislation was happening (2009-2015). My impression was that more and more parties that were ideologically against it got popular and this changed the agenda of policymakers, given also the pressure estate investors that were hunting for a treasure. But existing squats were definitely well integrated with the cities I lived in (Utrecht, Amsterdam), sign that this law somehow became part of the city identity.
Conservative parties considered this a loophole in the law, progressive parties probably thought this worked quite well to prevent housing speculation.
But it appears it may have originated from a legal accident rather than explicit legislation. Still, during the 1990s it was explicit policy at least in Amsterdam to tolerate squatting within these conditions.
See, this is something I never fully understood: people told me the same, but I mean, when somebody is allowed to go to the gemeente (town hall, kind of) and say "hello, I want to register as a legal resident of this address, I don't have a contract or anything and in fact I am squatting the building. Can I?" and the answer is "ok", I consider this somehow "explicit legislation", at least in practice, no?
Though I'm sure there are big fuzzy areas between the two.
We can learn that certain people oppose the idea of squatters on a moral level. I dont think thats a surprising new finding.