A long stay hotel with 55 rooms can be built on the Jan Pieter Heijestraat in Amsterdam West, twelve years after the plan was first announced. The Council of State, the highest administrative court in the country, has dismissed the objections to the main permit, and the decision cannot be appealed.
The hotel is aimed at guests who stay in the city for extended periods rather than a few nights.
The site has stood empty since 2011, when 39 social housing units on it were demolished. Locals know it as the gap in the Kinkerbuurt.
Why the objections failed
Residents organised as the action group Long Stay No Way have fought the plan for years. They argue the neighbourhood needs homes rather than another hotel, and that the building will bring considerably more foot traffic to the streets around it.
They had reason to think the ground had shifted their way. The city tightened its rules on new hotels in 2024, and the Kinkerbuurt is currently under a complete hotel stop, meaning no new hotel may open there at all.
That did not apply here. The Council of State ruled back in 2022 that the developer had a legitimate expectation the older and more permissive hotel policy would govern this project, because the first permit dates from 2015.
A rule made in 2024 cannot be applied backwards to a plan approved under the rules of nine years earlier.
The court did find shortcomings in how the permit was justified. It judged them not serious enough to strike the permit down.
The city did not want it either
The council has been uncomfortable with the hotel for years, and has taken the position that it has no legal room to refuse it. It granted a fresh permit just over three years ago for that reason.
Thomas Hermans of D66, then serving as a district administrator in West, said at the time that he would have much preferred a different outcome, that the neighbourhood needed housing rather than a hotel, and that where there are no legal grounds for refusal there is simply no other option available.
A different kind of hotel, and a different kind of guest
The case for the building was set out as early as 2015 by the city official who advises on hotel proposals. The argument was that an apartment hotel is a category of its own: guests cook in their own rooms and spend more of their time in the surrounding streets than ordinary tourists do.
On that reasoning it draws a different visitor as well, families and business travellers in Amsterdam for a project lasting weeks or months rather than a weekend. A team of council specialists endorsed that assessment in 2023.
What happens next
The developer, Gert van der Linde, said he was very satisfied with the ruling, noting that the first permit was issued in 2015 and that it is now finally settled beyond appeal that the hotel will be built.
He expects the first ground to be broken next year. One permit is still outstanding, covering the technical side of the building rather than the principle of it: fire safety, soil contamination and similar requirements.
He expects that process to take a few months.
On the question of whether the hotel may be built at all, a council spokesperson said the district now has effectively no discretion left. Once the technical permit is final, construction can start.
The objection that remains
The Oud-West tenants association called the ruling disappointing. Margot Nieuwenhuis, speaking for the association, said it was a shame that the court agreed with them on several points and identified defects in the permit, yet did not annul it on those grounds.
What continues to rankle, she said, is that a hotel is being made possible on ground where social housing once stood. Her closing point was addressed to the city rather than the court: explain that to the thousands of people in Amsterdam looking for somewhere to live.
