The Versailles of Antwerp is aging
Chic and spacious living in a green environment? Partly due to the energy crisis, the old dream villa in Brasschaat has been turned into a nightmare. What will become of those cabinets?
In 2009, P top keeper Jean-Marie and his husbands put their villa in the Guyotdreef in Brasschaat up for sale. ‘A spacious villa in a prime location with an indoor swimming pool’, is how she was marketed. Jean-Marie and his wife lived happily but, given their age and ailments, wished for smaller housing. It was the beginning of an agony. It will eventually take the Pfaff ten years. Original asking price: almost 2 million euros. She content herself with 695,000 euros.
The Pfaffs are not facing a real reality. Somewhat older villas, especially those built in the 1970s and 1980s, have fallen out of favor for a while. This is especially true in green suburbs such as Brasschaat. To give a fairly precise idea: between 2017 and 2020, house prices in Flanders rose by about 15 percent. Figures from the Federation of Notaries show that, in the same period, the average price of a villa in Brasschaat did roughly the job: the average price dropped from about 757,000 to 681,000 euros.
A municipality that does not make way for young people will continue to age and pay a heavy price for this in the foreseeable future.’ Lorenzo Van Tornhaut, developer
Herman Lauwers is a former Member of Parliament for Spirit and a resident of Brasschaat. In his recently published booklet Living in Brasschaat he how his congregation, in the eighteenth no more than a collection of farms and inns, got its reputation as a reservation for the rich. This happened in the first proceedings during the nineteenth century when, influenced by nature and rural styles such as ministers, bankers and factory owners, large villas and castles were built there. The attempt to profile the municipality as ‘the Versailles of Antwerp’ dates from that time.
What followed was a very slow process of what we call gentrification today. The most important families and farmers’ sons, moved to the cities involved to work there as labourers. Their employers, together with the other members of the upper class, turned their backs on the cities and built many more beautiful villas in the ‘residential municipalities’ in the wooded outskirts of the city.
Raging Gardens
If you take a walk today through the slates and lanes of Brasschaat, you cannot ignore it. The Brassskade dream is not quite dead yet. Also in 2022 new, not modest villas are being built. But there is also, visible and unmistakable, decay. Peeling paint, mossy roofs, closed shutters. Villas in danger of being swallowed up by the rampant gardens around them. An important note for those who still cherish the dream: there is no bruise in neighborhood life. It can be very quiet in Brasschaat’s lanes.
‘Brasschaat is ageing’, says Herman Lauwers. Many villas were built during the 1970s and 1980s. Today, the owners are often people over seventy who can no longer take care of the maintenance of the garden because – it happens more often than you might think – they are no longer able to pay the energy bills. In some cases, their partner has already died. That creates a high demand for apartments, with prices that are through the roof.’
The demand for older villas is much more limited. Unlike forty years ago, a city like Antwerp is once again attractive for young, wealthy families. Moreover, these families are no longer as large as they were fifty years ago. In addition, Brasschaat scores very poorly in terms of mobility. Lauwers: ‘The city council has refused to be connected to Antwerp by tram. It still happens that, as soon as the children are a bit older, families want to go back to the green edge. But such a large old villa is not the most attractive option for them. Anyone who has the money to go green will have the money for a newer one, will opt for a newer, luxurious villa, or look for houses on land in cheaper municipalities in the north, such as Wuustwezel or Essen.’
Lorenzo Van Tornhaut, developer and guest lecturer at KU Leuven, sees the same trend outside of Brasschaat. Also in other residential municipalities around the larger cities, the demand for the type of villa that not so long ago was the embodiment of the ultimate Flemish dream. ‘People with surplus capital who can afford a villa in the green outskirts also want it to be sustainable and maintenance-friendly,’ says Van Tornhaut. ‘The villas that were built in the seventies and eighties often met those requirements. As a rule, they are poorly insulated. They are often in urgent need of renovation, and you have to count on top of the purchase price. Add to that the energy crisis, and you understand why this type of villa is not as popular as other real estate.’
The owners are often over seventy who can no longer maintain the garden or pay the energy bills.’ Herman Lauwers, resident
Corona impulse
Back to the figures of the notaries for a moment. Which last year suddenly saw a trend to follow. In one year, the value of the villa in Brasschaat had risen from 681,000 to 828,000 euros. ‘That is a colossal increase, true’, but there is only one explanation for this,’ says civil-law notary Bart van Opstal, speaking from Notaris.be. ‘The corona crisis. During the lockdowns, you suddenly got a lot more demand for space and greenery. A bad EPC score just didn’t matter. If only there was space and greenery.’
Van Opstal does not yet have figures for this year, but he has no doubts. ‘The demand for those somewhat older villas in the outskirts will fall to the level it was before the corona crisis. During the pandemic, space and greenery were the most important factors. Now, during the energy crisis, the first thing that counts is the EPC value. Heating a large, difficult villa costs a lot of people. In addition, this year the insulation obligation will be added. Anyone who buys a villa with an EPC value of F is obliged to reach a minimum score of D within five years. That too costs a lot of money, certainly given the size of those homes.’
Van Opstal knows it freely: anyone who has developed into the purchase of a large, poorly starting villa in the green during the corona crisis has not done the very best thing. An investor who bought a property with a bad EPC value to rent out is not allowed to index the rent. Anyone who bought the house to live in it themselves will have a very expensive winter.’
It takes some getting used to for the residents. Today, the spacious villa they once dreamed of and were so proud of is a cause for concern. this legal person for the municipal council of municipalities. As Herman Lauwers pointed out: for a young family, these old villas are not only too expensive, but also too large and too old-fashioned. It also ensures that Brasschaat continues to age and young families turn their gaze to the cheaper north. ‘But that is anything but a good thing for our spatial planning,’ says Lauwers. ‘A lot of farmers from those municipalities are up to their necks. They are asking to allot their land. The temptation to answer that question is great. While it insists on what we must do: preserve the scarce open space we have, and more we will live in.’
Co-housing
Good recipes exist to make Brasschaat attractive to younger, more good middle class people. And the simplest is not necessarily the best. Many older villas are on lots more than 2,000 square feet. The cry is louder: tear down that house, cut that lot in four, and you always have four fairly spacious building plots left. ‘Everywhere you see project developers preying on such solutions,’ says Lauwers, ‘while that is completely impossible. Such a reallocation means you have to build new roads and infrastructure. It causes further fragmentation of gardens –, in some cases, but parks – that have an important natural value.’
The solution that Lauwers proposes is very similar to a form of housing that has been around for some time in the larger cities. ‘Make those old villas suitable for cohousing,’ he says. ‘Turn it into multi-family homes and let those families share the existing garden, the washing machine, the storage room and a guest room. It reduces the costs for residents and new housing, without taking up new space and without damaging the ecological value. I know, to make that solution possible, new spatial implementation plans are needed, and quite a few legal rules are also involved. But why shouldn’t Brasschaat be able to do what has been possible in the cities for a long time?’
Developers want to divide the lots. That’s not absolute.’ Herman Lauwers, resident
Lauwer’s proposal is not that of Lorenzo Van Tornhaut’s design. ‘Many of these lands are perfectly suitable for building clustered multi-family homes’, he says. ‘By that I mean: four corner houses that you push together and that together can have the view of a country house. The benefits speak for themselves. You can share the garden and the often old trees, you can share it, you don’t cut new space and you don’t have to build extra streets of infrastructure. In addition, there is a huge potential here. It concerns very large spaces. I know that studies have been made in the studio of the Flemish master builder into the possibilities of this form of living. I have already made several proposals in this direction, but the answer has always been: resistance of local protest projects on the basis of private interests.’ In concrete terms: local residents resist because they think that their chic villa will decrease in value if the villas around them are converted into multi-family homes. In nine out of ten cases that protest comes from the generation that came to live in the golden years and wants everything to stay the same. Van Tornhaut: ‘It is a conservatism that, from electoral flights, is often supported by local politics. It’s very shortsighted. The local government does not want to offend those people, but a municipality that does not make room for young people will continue to age and pay a heavy price for it in the foreseeable future.’