Havenfront: how BPD found more homes without losing the green

In Alphen aan den Rijn, a former industrial site on the waterfront is becoming a neighbourhood for almost a thousand households. It will be car-free, with a green zone through the middle where an energy corridor once ran. Arthur Hofman is a property developer at BPD. He has worked there for six years and has developed Havenfront from the start. He calls it a puzzle: the more pieces you add, the harder it gets to make them fit.

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A puzzle that called for OMRT

The brief is dense and urban. The neighbourhood is car-free, with a parking hub of more than 500 spaces, 28 per cent social housing and around 26 per cent mid-rent. The zoning plan sets an FSI, with a cap on floor area and bonus schemes for commercial programme. Everything is connected. What you add in one place costs you space somewhere else.

"I've never had a puzzle like this. I've never come across a zoning plan written the way this one is."

That is exactly why OMRT was brought in at the very start.

From 850 to 960 homes

OMRT / hub was used to calculate thousands of variants. Havenfront stood at 850 homes and now comes out at 960.

What Hofman values most in OMRT / hub is how intuitive it feels to work with the 3D models. Any change shows up straight away across the rest of the project, including its effect on the FSI.

"We started from 2,400 square metres of commercial space. But now I can see that if I make it 1,500, the bonus schemes let me get the FSI to three. With the parking still in."

He doesn't work in the full variable dashboard himself. He uses the controls filtered from it. "Move that little tower back over there. Give me a few more of those homes. That works perfectly."

Few words needed

The collaboration has worked well, says Hofman. What stands out to him is how little back-and-forth it takes to get something usable. When he sets out what he wants in an email, what comes back is often exactly what he had in mind, with no meetings in between.

"You move pretty quickly on that front, and you very often get what we mean."

The biggest added value

With an FSI question like this, the municipality keeps wanting to see the bigger picture. You can put all the social housing here, but what does the rest look like then? "And now you can just show that at the push of a button. That helps a huge amount."

Asked what the biggest added value is, Hofman names exactly that: being able to show the full picture quickly, and how every choice affects the rest.