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Organized Crime
As mayor, Halsema is responsible for public order and security in Amsterdam and this is not a trivial matter. Organized crime in particular can become a big challenge, if not the biggest one. During the past year, several liquidation operations took place in Amsterdam, including the murder of a 17-year-old trainee in a community center in Wittenburg and the liquidation of the brother of the main witness Nabil B. to the NDSM shipyard.
Halsema, in his new role as mayor, has various powers to safeguard law and order in the city. For example, the mayor is a member of the police district's board of directors. As a result, he will be involved on the merits in case of possible liquidations, threats and terrorist attacks in the city.
Halsema's predecessor, Eberhard van der Laan, marked his mayoral influence with his approach to crime. After a murderous burglary at a jeweler in 2010, he created the so-called Top600; a list of the city's most criminal youths. A large number of humanitarian workers have been called for young people. In this way, he hoped to reduce crime in the city. This was one of his most characteristic actions: not to speak, but to act.
Tourism
A great theme for the new mayor is growing tourism in the city. The Amsterdam City Council has been trying for years to find a solution for the increasingly busy city center. With 6.7 million foreign visitors, Amsterdam was the most important tourist attraction of the Netherlands last year. About 37% of all foreign tourists have gone to the capital and this number is expected to increase.
Last year, tourism in the Netherlands grew by 9%, the highest growth since 2006. This puts a lot of pressure on the capital and Halsema can help with that as a face of the city. In the past, Van der Laan held consultations with the mayors of Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague on the spread of tourists in order to ease the pressure on his city. Halsema, in his role as mayor and face of the city, can also look for ways to stop unrest in his city and represent the interests of the city's residents.
Amsterdam tourism is at the top of the agenda of the new college and will also become a big theme at the Halsema Town Hall, which will be regularly returned to City Council meetings. The new government of the city wants to reduce traffic in the city center among other things by increasing the tourist tax. "Fun transport" (segways and carriages) must also be pushed back to the busiest neighborhoods. At this moment, there is already a ban on beer bicycles in the city center of Amsterdam.
Since October of last year, stores in the city center that are reserved for tourists are also prohibited. This includes ticket stores, bike rental companies and attractions. Due to the increasing number of tourists and day-trippers in Amsterdam, more and more tourist shops were appearing and the Amsterdammers were getting further and further away from the city center.
. Many Amsterdammers are experiencing nuisance by renting houses in their neighborhood, but without renting housing, the city may lose tourism revenue. Last year, Airbnb warned that the city would lose 43 million euros if it brought back the maximum holiday period to thirty days.
Despite this, last January, the city council reduced the maximum rental period to thirty days. Various parties in the city council found the sixty-day period too long. This would cause inconvenience in neighborhoods. In the busiest neighborhoods, the new college would prefer to totally ban holiday rentals via Airbnb. Halsema's task is to unite the city council and end the struggle between a choice of vacation rentals revenue and fewer crowds in the city center.
Accessibility
The coming years will be even busier in and around Amsterdam. Accessibility will therefore become a major theme for Halsema, where it can serve as a bridge between the decisions and investments of the municipality, the province and the national government. For example, the government plans, among other things, the widening of A6, A1, A9 and additional lanes for the A10 Zuid. With these plans, the government hopes that traffic on the roads around Amsterdam will improve. In this project, 200 million euros will be invested .
Public transportation in the city will also change significantly in the coming years and will become a recurring theme within the city council. The number of trains departing from Amsterdam Centraal will need to increase from 34 to 57 in the future. With that, the city hopes to accommodate the growing number of travelers.
Halsema will also have to deal with the accessibility of the file at the ceremonial level. On July 21, for example, he will open the North-South line. This will be his first public appearance as mayor.
Rising Rents
Another major theme for the Mayor of Halsema will be the excitement, including in the housing market. House prices in Amsterdam have been rising for some time. In the first quarter of 2018, the average price of a home rose 2.2% over the previous year. This leads to a record in the rents in the city.
The housing market shortage also continues to increase. Last December, the Amsterdam Court of Auditors also advised the municipality to take unusual measures to remove the pressure on the housing market. For the moment, the city is trying to resolve the pressure on the housing market by building mainly more houses, but the Court of Auditors is calling for unconventional measures. For example, the municipality itself could grant loans to residents of the city or introduce income-related rents
Halsema can play an important role in bringing city council together and placing the housing market shortage in the city. Agenda. As mayor, she has the opportunity to put issues on the agenda herself and discuss her own proposals, which can have a major impact on the development of unconventional measures for rising rents in Amsterdam.
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