Local Performance Agreements for (Social) Housing Policy– Does It Work?
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Local performance agreements for (social) housing policy– does it work? A case study in three Dutch municipalities on the effects and effectiveness of the policy instrument of local performance agreements for housing policy in the light of the revised Housing Act MASTER THESIS BY SHAUNY PLETTENBURG Local performance agreements for (social) housing policy– does it work? A case study in three Dutch municipalities on the effects and effectiveness of the policy instrument of local performance agreements for housing policy in the light of the revised Housing Act Master thesis submitted to Delft University of Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in Complex Systems Engineering and Management Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management by Shauny Plettenburg Student number: 4210530 To be defended in public on the 21th of September 2018 Graduation committee Chairperson : Prof. dr.ir. M.G. Elsinga, Housing institutions and Governance (OTB) First Supervisor : Dr. H.M.H. Van der Heijden, Housing Systems (OTB) Second Supervisor : Dr. T. Hoppe, Multi-Actor Systems: Organisation & Governance (TPM) External Supervisor : Ir. R. Koster, Arcadis ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This master thesis is the final piece of work of my master’s: Complex System Engineering and Management at the Delft University of Technology. In this master program you learn to analyse and design social-technical systems. The combination of technology and society makes this program extremely valuable. During my master’s I emphasised on topics in the field of the built environment and spatial development. The choice for a topic related to housing associations and the social housing sector was easily made. Already since I was young, I am very much interested in anything that has to do with real estate and housing. Therefore, I followed an internship at a housing organisation in Rotterdam, because I consider them as very interesting an valuable institutions in the housing sector. Housing associations have to provide housing for low income households but are independent businesses and therefore work in between the market, government and society. During my internship I got a first-hand look into the impact of the revised Housing Act on these organisations and their daily operations. This increased my curiosity into the effects of this Act in such a way, that I decided to study the effectiveness of the new set of regulations for my master thesis. I want to thank a number of people for helping me completing this final piece of work for my master’s program. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my first supervisor Harry van der Heijden, for his input regarding important decisions and the provision of valuable feedback, but especially for the useful meetings when I was stuck and he was able to put me in the right direction. Moreover, I am also thankful to my other supervisor Thomas Hoppe for his suggestions to apply a policy analysis approach and his valuable suggestions to improve my thesis. He has drawn my attention to the Contextual Interaction Theory as a suitable theoretical approach for this study. I am also thankful to Marja Elsinga for ensuring the process and her constructive feedback that helped me to further improve the scientific relevance of the study. I thank Roel Koster of Arcadis for putting me in touch with valuable respondents for this study. Thereby I would also express my gratitude to all respondents who have been interviewed for this study and who provided valuable information which was considered essential. Finally, I want to thank Hjalmar, my boyfriend, for his unconditional support. Shauny Plettenburg III SUMMARY Almost one third of the total housing sector in the Netherlands can be considered social housing. Housing associations in the Netherlands, as providers of social rental dwellings, have a long history of regulations changes over the last century. A few decades ago the social housing sector in the Netherlands had been shifted from the government to the market, in order to increase the effectiveness of the provision of social housing. Currently, the social housing sector is shifting back from the market towards government to improve the steering possibilities of the government in the social housing sector and moreover to ensure social benefit. This study focused on the most recent regulation change in the social housing sector: the revised Housing Act 2015, and more specific, one of the policy instruments which obtained a legal status due to this regulation change: The local performance agreements for social housing policy between municipalities, housing associations and tenants organisations. This policy instrument of local performance agreements for (social) housing policy seeks to facilitate and ensure the co-creation of (social) housing policy between a municipality, housing associations and tenants’ organisations for social benefit. Before the latest revision, the establishment of local performance agreements was voluntarily while the revised Housing Act has made them imperative. This study seeks to provide a preliminary evaluation of the policy instrument in the light of the revised Housing Act. The main research question is as follows: What are the effects of the policy instrument of local performance agreements for social housing policy in the light of the revised Housing Act 2015? Since this study is considered a preliminary policy evaluation, a policy analysis approach is used to determine the effects of the instrument. The Contextual Interaction Theory (CIT) provides an analytical framework to assess policy implementation. CIT seeks to evaluate policy instruments, for which the involvement of multiple actors is required, by determining whether and to what extent the characteristics of the involved actors and the context influence the implementation process. A case- study approach is applied to analyse the implementation process for the establishment of local performance agreements in three municipalities in the province of South-Holland: Bodegraven- Reeuwijk, Zoetermeer and Rotterdam. By means of dossier examination and interviews with representatives of the municipalities, housing associations and tenants’ organisations the implementation processes of the policy instrument have been analysed and evaluated. Moreover, representatives of the umbrella organisations of VNG, Aedes and Woonbond have also been interviewed to provide insight in the new roles, responsibilities and interrelations between municipalities, housing associations and tenants’ organisations as the result of the new policy. From this preliminary policy evaluation a set of effects is derived. First of all, the mandatory collaboration between housing associations, municipalities and tenants’ organisations has resulted in negotiations between the three parties in order to discuss social housing related issues. This already increased the influence of municipalities and tenants’ organisations in social housing and therefore is able to increases the social and democratic legitimacy of housing associations. However, the municipalities and tenants’ organisations are due to this instrument also faced with new responsibilities regarding the creation and implementation of social housing policy. Therefore, enhancing their position in social housing is also dependent on their capabilities. When they lack certain capabilities such as negotiation capacity and knowledge of strategic housing policy, this might threaten their influence in social housing. A second effect of the implementation of the policy instrument of local performance agreements, derived from the study, is that the local performance agreements for housing policy in its current form, comprise a broader set of housing issues which are IV being addressed during the negotiations. During the negotiations, the network actors do no longer only address detailed real estate development figures, but moreover topics like habitability of the living environment and the energetic quality of the social housing stock are discussed. These topics are, amongst other things, better embedded in the process due to the involvement of tenants’ organisations in the process. A third effect is that the performance agreements now are considered less non-committal in comparison to its predecessor, although there is condition that municipalities have to make a housing policy document in order to enforce housing associations to establish performance agreements. The support instruments, implemented by the central government, such as hard deadlines and a dispute settlement body, help ensuring the creation of a solid process between the local network actors for the establishment of local performance agreements for housing policy. However, also negative side effects are derived: the restricted remit of housing associations as the result of the revised Housing Act could hamper the co-creation of local housing policy during economic downturn or when market parties do not take up the responsibility of building important facilities, such as supermarkets but also middle income housing. It could be of added value for the community when housing associations could take on these activities in such circumstances but due to the regulation change it is unclear what the housing associations are allowed to execute. It should be questioned whether the Act, regarding this aspect, stands in the way of its goal. In addition, the central government tries to facilitate the process of establishing performance agreements