Urban redevelopment of a new town: The case of Zoetermeer in the Netherlands

Abstract

The success factors contributing to the development of Zoetermeer, a former Dutch new town, into a contemporary city include dedicated public leadership, long-term commitment from social housing providers, private developers, institutional investors, timely and transparent communication with residents and the need to act and outperform the city benchmark. Zoetermeer was designed and built as a new town close to the government centre at The Hague and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2022. It is now home to more than 125,000 residents. For decades Zoetermeer’s growth took place in the surrounding green fields. Therefore, the existing capacity-building methodology was not fit for the purpose of the ‘brownfield’ urban redevelopment challenge. The city authorities were also reluctant to engage in pro-active real estate stakeholder leadership. Since 2017, however, RITTERWALD pan-European residential strategy consultancy has supported Zoetermeer’s urban redevelopment strategy, including leading the preparation of a 10,000+ homes Urban Development Agreement (Stadsbouwakkoord) which is now being delivered to provide mixed tenure neighbourhoods. This achievement involved educating the municipal administration in the practice of urban redevelopment, including hosting regular masterclasses with high-level public and private sector actors. How a new town grew up and reinvented itself is explored in this paper.