Evert Jan Geerdes

Review of Het Oversticht

In Bathmen, despite the agreements made to maintai...

In Bathmen, despite the agreements made to maintain the small-scale open and green village character in the center, there is a scaling complex of (unwanted) contiguous buildings (library, houses, apartments being the Bronsvast project) with 100% building density without its own yard or parking space in the center. Bathmen approved by the Oversticht. The chance of a domino effect is high. Construction plans at the Rabobank location have also been assessed. The Masterplan vision for the village of Bathmen stated; The Rabobank location must enhance the green image of the Dorpsstraat through a largely green appearance. The place lends itself well to housing, due to the character of the Dorpsstraat and the location near the facilities. A (partial) interpretation with a function in the field of leisure activities, or services (offices) is also possible. It is essential in the development of the Rabobank location that the strong ensemble work of the Westerhuis and the former rectory (as described in the analysis of the spatial main structure) is strengthened. On the other hand, the buildings must fit in the buildings ribbon of the Dorpsstraat. From the current view of Dorpsstraat, an interpretation with ground-related housing at the Rabobank location is most desirable. However, residential construction can also be realized here in the form of small-scale apartment buildings. In that case, the buildings each have a small space requirement (two footprint approx. 250 m2) and a building height of 2 layers with roof. In this way, the buildings correspond in scale and mass to the former rectory and the Westerhuis. The parking spaces will be behind the houses as much as possible, so that the cars are out of sight.

The invitation planning of the municipality of Deventer repeats itself, just like with the scaling up Bronze fixed plan and the treatment providers went through the knees under pressure from the developer, which affects the characteristic village area quality. The village center originated from a historical (circle of farms around the church) has a fine-grained building structure, small-scale and diverse, which beautifully represent the village of Bathmen. The trend of upscaling alienated urban new construction is being continued, again causing a characteristic piece of image quality to disappear.
The Oversticht has also approved these up-scaling new-build plans for apartments instead of opting for retaining small-scale villages. An organization that must protect the village beauty does the opposite. In this way, a government squandered its task of organizing and controlling the public space and leaves this to private developers.