Minister Boekholt-O’Sullivan of Housing wants to prevent the renovation of the Binnenhof from becoming even more expensive and taking even longer. But she cannot provide certainty, as became apparent in a debate about the renovation of the historic complex in the city center of The Hague. “I’m going to do my very best,” she said.

It is yet another debate about the out-of-control renovation of the political center of the Netherlands. Five of the eight political parties present asked the minister for “more control” over the renovation.

“We have completely lost control,” notes PVV MP Mooiman. VVD member Nobel emphasized that it is a “recurring subject”. The CDA asked for “active cost control” and BBB wanted a commitment that “there will be no further changes”.

The reason for the debate is the 15th progress report(opens in new window) from April, which states that the cost counter now stands at 2.79 billion euros and that users should be able to return in the summer of 2031. There is hardly any surprise or anger about the increased costs and delays. The question is what happens next. “Has the maximum now been reached?” SGP MP Flach wondered.

In 2015, politicians decided to renovate the historic complex according to the cheapest and fastest variant: all Binnenhof users had to move to temporary housing elsewhere in the city for 5.5 years. The idea was to be back around 2026, and that it could be done for 475 million euros. But 2026 became 2028, which became “later” and now the spring of 2031 is in the books.

The renovation has become much more expensive for all kinds of reasons. The complex consists of many different architectural styles from the sixteenth century and behind the facade there appeared to be asbestos, wood rot, mold, contaminated soil, leaks and even more misery. Boekholt-O’Sullivan says that the scale of the project only became clear after all the users had left. “The moment we opened it, we only saw how big the task was.”

Specialized construction workers turned out to be more expensive and the House of Representatives imposed all kinds of additional sustainability requirements. Additional security requirements had also initially been overlooked, which meant that the installation of ICT storage outside the secure Binnenhof turned out to be a bad idea. This storage will now be placed in an extra concrete container in front of the Ridderzaal.

The tone of the nine parties present at the debate was mild. “We also have to look in the mirror ourselves, we have done too little in terms of maintenance,” said MP Clemminck of JA21, expressing the House’s co-responsibility for the renovation project that got out of hand. “It is quite an expensive task,” noted D66 MP Van Asten. “But in the Netherlands we are very good at postponing maintenance: look at our roads, dikes and bridges.”

Many MPs have also had a tour of the National Real Estate Agency and have become convinced of the necessity of the expensive work, such as the restoration of all kinds of historical ceiling paintings. “Eight centuries of history are being prepared for eight centuries of the future,” said CDA MP Steen.

Minister Boekholt-O’Sullivan mainly agrees with the concerns and comments from Parliament. She also thinks the amount of almost 2.7 billion euros is “an incredible amount of money”. It promises to control costs and delays by, for example, making more realistic price agreements and no longer imposing additional requirements. “Additional adjustments are only possible if there is no other option,” and she also asks that discipline from MPs.

Furthermore, the minister responsible for National Real Estate promised to send MPs a separate letter about new setbacks and not to report them only in a progress report. “Then you will no longer be unpleasantly surprised.”