During the final University Council meeting before the summer break, vice-president Nicole Ummelen said that the university is considering placing temporary housing units on campus. However, Alderwoman Mieke Verhees of the Eindhoven municipality said during a committee meeting last Wednesday that these units will not be realized, because they aren’t economically viable. Dorine Peters, director of Real Estate, confirms this and says that the units under consideration were luxurious, well insulated tents, such as those offered for ‘glamping’ accommodations. These tents were supposed to remain on campus for a period of three to five years.

“In the end we failed to reach an agreement with the operator,” Peters says, “and we also weren’t sure whether the social livability was properly safeguarded with these units. In addition, we at Real Estate need to seriously consider how a solution like this one relates to the long-term development of our campus.”

Hotel Pullman

Verhees said that TU/e was also talking to hotel Pullman at the Vestdijk about housing units for students. Peters: “That, too, is correct, we really try to exhaust every option we have to realize extra student housing, and this was one of the options under consideration. We had several dozens of rooms in mind, but in the end they went to an industrial party.”

Peters emphasizes that Real Estate continues to look for alternative options, and that it will do so in close collaboration with Education and Student Affairs (ESA), as well as with local partners in the field of student housing. “As a university, we’re not allowed to invest money in housing. But what we can do is facilitate and bring parties together. That’s why we’re currently hard at work trying to bring parties together to work on new initiatives, with the aim of realizing extra housing for students in a relatively short term. We receive much support during this process from our student housing covenant partners, such as the municipality of Eindhoven.”

Fortunately, there is at least the prospect of the completion of two residential towers and low-rise buildings for students on the TU/e campus, Peters says. “Woonbedrijf is busy preparing the terrain for construction, which will commence in November. That will result in 735 extra living units in 2024, which will bring the total number of living units on campus to approximately 1500.”

Peters can’t say at this point whether that number will increase in the long term. “As said before, we’ve adopted a real estate strategy (document in Dutch), which you need to take into account when considering such a question. If the university were to build more labs in the future, for example, it wouldn’t be possible to place extra housing units in the direct vicinity of those labs. That’s something you need to take into account when you make a decision on housing.”