In the Rosmalen new housing estate ‘De Groote Wielen’, housing corporation Zayaz and housing foundation JOOST are realising no less than 200 homes under the name STEK. STEK offers an integrated approach to various social issues.

Starting points and ambitions

The ambition to build sustainable homes is more than met in STEK. The environmental performance of STEK homes phase 2 ranges from 0.36 to 0.44. Not only sustainable ambitions are fulfilled. STEK provides a short-term answer to the high demand for housing and is intended for low- and middle-income households. And that is not all. Not without reason, STEK homes are built under the theme of ‘sustainable living with neighbours’. STEK is intended for residents who are for each other, who live together and who want to maintain the sustainable neighbourhood together. To achieve this, STEK's developers are constantly working on coordinating the building concept, the neighbourhood design and the social composition of the residents.

200 homes in 3 years

200 homes in 3 years
The first 30 STEK homes were completed in 2023. Jurgen Arts and Luck Dankers are busy working on phase 2 on behalf of Zayaz and JOOST. Jurgen is developer and coordinating project manager and Luck is construction developer, construction manager and conducts construction management.  The STEK project consists of no less than 200 homes. ‘Together with housing foundation JOOST, we are putting up 91 houses this year,’ Luck reports. ‘That's a lot of homes in a short period of time, yet the schedule is do-able.’ This is because the houses are built in the factory and delivered to the construction site in components. The work on site largely consists of joining and assembling.’

‘s-Hertogenbosch and Rosmalen are known for their many flex homes. The idea here is to help house seekers find housing quickly. Many of them are temporary housing. Jurgen: ‘The STEK houses are not flex housing, they are suitable for permanent residence. But the idea of flex housing has put us on the track of relocatable and therefore detachable housing. The modular homes from the factory fit that idea. The STEK plan assumes that the houses of phase 1 and phase 2 will be relocated in the foreseeable future. The residents of these phases will be offered rental contracts for up to 15 years. They are informed that the relocation may be carried out as early as 8 or 10 years from now. If they want, they may move along and the new location is in essence somewhere else in De Groote Wielen. It gives us the opportunity to provide some fulfilment of the high demand for affordable social housing in 3 years.’

The houses of phase 3 will be given permanent use immediately. These homes are also from the factory and were supposed to be ready this year, but due to delays in the supply of utilities, completion has been postponed to spring 2025.

Together with the neighbours

In addition, the project is strongly committed to a sense of community. STEK's developers have conducted extensive research and spoken to a large number of people, asking how to promote a sense of community in the neighbourhood and with the surrounding districts.

The layout of the neighbourhood is an important factor in this. The houses are situated around 12 residential areas that allow for communal outdoor living. The residential yards not only allow children to play together, but also provide opportunities for adults to meet each other. Luck: ‘It contributes to residents helping each other and that might lead to the decision, given the limited number of parking spaces, to use a car together. Contact with surrounding neighbourhoods has also been considered. The STEK plan is designed to make it interesting for local residents to walk through it.  

Jurgen: ‘We explicitly target residents who fit into this living environment and want to participate. A special measure is that we allocate as much as a third of the homes to middle-income residents. Furthermore, we provide extensive information on the purpose of this way of living together. We do this on our website, during information meetings and by putting residents in touch with each other beforehand. We make it clear that STEK is open to residents who enjoy having a lot of contact with each other, maintaining the yards together and helping each other out. That question comes up emphatically. All in a casual atmosphere, though. There are no compulsory rules. Education about this form of cohabitation will certainly help. The percentage of candidates who drop out in the preliminary stage is therefore higher than normal.’

The key question here is how to maintain the sense of community when the first residents move elsewhere. Jurgen: ‘As a housing corporation, we have to hand over the steering wheel at some point. That's why we start working with neighbourhood connectors under the name ‘Butterfly Effect’. These are residents who want to take on the task of developing all kinds of neighbourhood activities and embrace initiatives that contribute to a sense of community. After completion, this should not fall away. This sense of community is important not only to live together in a pleasant way, but also to maintain the sustainability and circularity of the homes and yards.’

Not part of the MPG calculation but important from a circularity perspective are the installation of a circular kitchen and a wooden garden terrace.