Reinilde Jonkhout interviewed me for Amsterdam Alternative about the beginnings of De Nieuwe Meent!
13 december de Nieuwe Meent has started their crowdfunding campaign to realize housing in Watergraafsmeer. But how did it all get started? How does one come up with the idea to build an independent housing cooperative? An interview with initiator Selçuk Balamir.
To Selçuk, sweet dreams are made of self-built housing coops. How does one get to that point?
‘I have to give a shoutout to my parents here. One is a city planner, the other an architect. So the imagination of building something was there.’
Knowing what to dream about is great, but there’s a lot involved in trying to get a living coop built from the ground up. Selçuk knows this from his direct surroundings. He lives in the NieuwLand building at Pieter Nieuwlandstraat 93-95 in Amsterdam Oost in self-produced social cohousing as part of an 11-member woongroep. NieuwLand is more than co-organised housing, there is also a volunteer-run event space.Time to Access i.c.w. Roel van der Zeeuw Architects.
While I initially thought NieuwLand was a squatted building, maybe because of their logo that resembles the symbol of the squatting movement, it is actually not. I wondered when they would all be kicked out of their building. Thankfully they won’t be, as they are a much-needed exception to ongoing evictions of important cultural hubs such as De Slang. The NieuwLand building was actually acquired by social housing association Soweto – founded by housing activists. This required a lot of legal, financial and bureaucratic work. Where to start?
Five years ago Selçuk had ‘absolutely no idea’ how a housing coop would work, but by living in NieuwLand he learned all about it. ‘It gave me a realistic sense about what commoning is on a daily basis: the sweat, blood, and tears, that gave me a sense of its potential. Not only that, I experienced firsthand what difference it can make in someone’s life’. (What is commoning?)
With commoning, rather than having everything decided for by markets or governments, it is possible to take matters in one’s own hands according to a shared vision. For example, should there be an empty lot in a city, a group of people could decide to develop a project there such as a community garden.
The difference commoning can make
What is that difference commoning can make in someone’s life? ‘Living at Nieuw-Land, I enjoyed the benefits of income adjusted rent. The rent is adjusted to each living group member’s work situation. I had no mental stress around rent, and it gave me the possibility to dedicate myself to social activism and social projects.’ One of those became de Nieuwe Meent. ‘This was in part because I benefited from the commitment and work of the people who started Soweto- and therefore NieuwLand. Since I can’t pay them back, I aim to pay it forward -that is how commoning works- by creating the same opportunities for other people.’
‘Soweto supported the beginnings of de Nieuwe Meent on multiple levels, which at first was called Nieuw[er]land as a pilot name. Working together with them earlier gave me an invaluable network and the necessary experience. And in the way that we were meeting at Joe’s Garage to organise ourselves for NieuwLand, and de Nieuwe Meent congregated at NieuwLand, soon de Nieuwe Meent can offer space to the project of the future.’
What Strange Hobbies Can Lead To
It is clear that Selçuk was sitting on fertile ground in which to plant housing coop seeds. In 2017, Selçuk learned about the tender that de Nieuwe Meent ended up applying for. Winning the tender would mean that de Nieuwe Meent got the rights to build a housing complex at Archimedesplantsoen in Watergraafsmeer, Amsterdam. How did he come across this unique opportunity?
‘It was quite a coincidence. I love looking at maps online, and in 2018 I was browsing the Amsterdam municipality website when I stumbled upon a map of do-it-yourself building (zelfbouw) plots, and behold, there was a pin on the map very close to NieuwLand, well within the city’s ring road. I said, what is this thing?!’
When Selçuk looked into the DIY building plot specifications further, he noticed the municipality cited Soweto and NieuwLand as a good example for types of buildings for the location. ‘This to me was a surprise, to be listed as an example of good practice. But it did give me a sense of confidence that we were on the right track, that we could find common ground with the municipality, that maybe we can indeed collaborate.’
‘A housing project of a bigger scale, and making a building from scratch would provide us with the opportunity to build the family aspect and accessibility right into the design’
Selçuk was counting on his network to seed this exciting new idea. Selçuk had a vision to bring together creatives, researchers, activists… people who are dedicated to progressive urban politics and cultural practices and more. ‘Starting a housing coop requires a lot of free labor, with uncertain outcomes and no guarantees. It requires expertise, experience and a lot of availability’.
Connections All Over Europe
After learning about the DIY building plot in Watergraafsmeer, in March 2018 Selçuk created a Facebook post in which he called for help with a ‘post-capitalist urban commune’. While this may leave certain people with a ‘question face’ emoji, friends of Selçuk were aware he was knee-deep in theory about the political economy of commoning in design, doing a PhD on post-capitalist design. So people in Selçuk’s network understood the tongue-in-cheek reference and soon enough the core team of de Nieuwe Meent was brought together.
‘People seem to appreciate my ability to hype things, my post got a lot of likes and shares. People I knew, but also people I didn’t know responded with enthusiasm.’
The architects who are now working on de Nieuwe Meent got in touch through that Facebook post. Selçuk was on the road at this point and interestingly ended up first meeting the architects in Barcelona, which coincided beautifully with a visit to La Borda, ‘a very comparable housing cooperative which was in its finishing stages’. Selçuk knew the initiators. ‘It couldn’t have been a more inspiring moment, to both meet my collaborators and to get inspiration and energy from an actual standing building. Without even discussing much, we knew right away -this is what we want-’.
More than a building to be inspired by, Selçuk was inspired by the example that was citizen-led platform Barcelona en Comú, translated ‘Barcelona in common’. ‘They won the municipal elections and got into the local government and so it came to be that Ada Colau, a housing activist became the mayor. We live in a different context, politically, economically, not everything translates to Amsterdam. The grassroots movements to put actions to words are weaker here. That’s where we thought we could have a role to play.’
This illustrates the potential connections that can be made in the city of Amsterdam on a grander scale, that Selçuk has in mind.
‘We have a shared vision of how the city could look like, how it could function, in terms of its power relations and how to overcome the democratic deficiency around it. And since in Barcelona they were so much at the frontline of urban struggles at large like gentrification and displacement, we could see a common cause, and the problems Amsterdam faces have their answers in these kinds of experiments. And in the case of Barcelona, more than experiments: Ada Colau are in their second term running the city so there is a relative position of strength in commoning the city.’
La ZAD in France And The Blossoming of Commoning Ideals
Before Selçuk met the architects and was applying to the tender to gain the building rights to the plot in Amsterdam, he travelled to a self-organized autonomous zone near Nantes, France to visit a ‘lab of commoning’, commonly known as the ZAD (Zone à Défendre, or “Zone to Defend”).
Selçuk got inspired by the success of the community of La ZAD, which resisted the construction of an airport for over 40 years. These development plans ultimately got cancelled in 2018, showing that it is possible to fight for one’s ideals and to then win.
‘Seeing that scale and diversity of that struggle, duty and responsibility, there are no excuses left to not realize our goals, we have the duty to be cutting edge.’
In Conclusion
Since first learning about an available building plot by chance, a lot of work has been done to realize the housing project of de Nieuwe Meent by a group of over 50 people. Now they are in the middle of their crowdfunding campaign, help spread the word! There are bonds for sale and it is possible to donate.
Read a longer version of this article on de Nieuwe Meent.
selj.net 