CLIMATE ACTION

The climate crisis demands immediate action. We are pushing with all our combined forces for a radical transition to a sustainable society and economy. With fairness as the basis, so that the strongest shoulders bear the heaviest weight. That requires political ambition and courage.

Other political parties may see the climate crisis as a side issue, GroenLinks insists that Zwolle is a climate leader and early adopter, striving for climate neutrality in 2030.

This past period, with GroenLinks in the ruling Coalition, was highly effective in pushing Zwolle's climate approach. More funds were made available for sustainability and climate resilience than ever before. Thanks to GroenLinks, we can look back at four years of top effort for laying a strong foundation for speeding up the energy transition. This is tremendously important and the coming eight years are crucial. For this reason we have to make an even greater effort to speed up the transition, in order to reach our goals

Zwolle has a lot to do to mitigate and avoid climate change, but we need to have the national government on our side. Our city has a great deal of in-house expertise and together we can make great strides. So that in Zwolle, in the near future, our homes are comfortable, affordable, and above all sustainable, no matter where you live. We are stimulating green jobs on all levels, from installers to engineers to CEOs.

We support local initiatives because it is important that our citizens and residents can themselves begin with insulating their houses or buying solar panels. For those who will but cannot do it alone, we offer a helping hand, because everyone should be able to join the energy transition. We need to work in a fair and inclusive way on the climate crisis, if we really want to really progress.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING AND NEIGHBOURBOOD GREENING

We will move Zwolle from a housing market with crisis-level housing shortage towards affordable living.

A roof over your head is a constitutional right, and a basic condition to survive and thrive. GroenLinks is committed to good living spaces in safe and pleasant neighbourhoods, with plenty of green spaces, playgrounds, shops, and activities. Right now, Zwolle, along with the rest of the Netherlands, is in the middle of a housing crisis, with unbelievably long waiting lists for rental housing. The scarce houses for sale are much too expensive, putting purchase out of reach of low- and middle-class families, students, starters, and the elderly. "Leaving housing to the free market"  has failed, giving the power and the profits to slumlords and investors, and leaving the rest of us poorer and struggling with the consequences. The situation is crying out for municipalities to take charge and break the deadlock in new and innovative ways. Your house is your home, and equally important is that your home is in a green, healthy, and functional neighbourhood.

That's why GroenLInks has made liveable neighbourhoods and affordable housing its priority in Zwolle. There is a crying need for moderately priced homes for sale, as well as for affordable rental houses and apartments. This means that in Zwolle we need to do a lot of building in the coming years. GroenLInks prefers to invest in flex housing that can be build rapidly for the really urgent housing cases, providing options for every life phase, each with its own particular features and desires. Another part of this is more intensive support and counselling for those seeking housing, and more actively promoting the flow from large to smaller or from medium-sized to large. We differ from other parties in that we don't promote building in nature areas, and choose actively for expansion within existing urbanised areas. With plenty of room for shops, parks, sport, culture, and playgrounds. In fact, an evolution from housing estates to living areas.

 

Een gezin voor een woonhuis
In een bosrijke omgeving plukt een man fruit uit een boom

GREEN ZWOLLE FOR HUMANS, ANIMALS AND NATURE

GroenLinks wants to continue our efforts for a Green Zwolle. We're trading bricks for (tree) bark and parking for parks!

Green is pretty close to all Zwolle residents: trees, flowers, bees, butterflies and even otters are all part of our quality of life here, providing a green environment for all of us. This helps  the city with climate adaptation and also gives us he chance for mental restoration. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us in an even more critical way how important this is for us. And strengthened the GroenLInks commitment to green in and outside the city.

Zwollenaars are proud of their green thumbs -- as well as their "blue fingers". We thrive in the green open spaces around us in parks like the English Works, woods like the Westerveldse Woods, the flood plains of the IJssel and the Wezenlanden park. We at GroenLInks are committed to cherish, guard, and strengthen these special places. We're proud that the College was able to preserve and even extend the Nooterhof as nature and environmental education centre.

And we're committed to go even further with greening our city. Fewer bricks, more tree bark. We're creating a bio diver-City with different kinds of cultivated and wild plants, planing more trees -- and lobbying for more parks. That helps when we have heat waves and stores water from extreme rains.

SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY FOR A HEALTHY CITY

Broad support for pedestrians and bicycles in the World Bicycle City of Zwolle

Everyone deserves a healthy and safe environment and clean air is an essential ingredient for that. Our open and public spaces are for safe and healthy movement, dwelling, playing, meeting, talking. Unfortunately, all of these basic elements of urban civility are threatened by automobility. Auto emissions pollute the air, and threaten our health.

Cars take up a lot of space, not only when they are moving, but when they are parked. Cars are involved in most fatal traffic accidents, and prevent children from playing safely outdoors, or from biking to and from school. The STOP-principle (Dutch) is the basis for our mobility policy: English SPPA = STEP, PEDAL (bike), PUBLIC (transportation), and last of all AUTOs.

Zwolle is a regional railroad hub and provincial capital, and this is part of the motivation to continue to invest in public transport and the area around the station. Living and working within bike distance or facilitated by bus- and train stations, makes it easier to leave the auto at home. That's part of why GroenLinks is committed to the bests bike path network and improved bus- and train connections. We choose, therefore, for walking, biking, public transportation, and carshares, so that we can keep autos on the periphery of the city.

Een fietsstuur met daaronder het fietspad

PARTICIPATION IS FOR EVERYONE

GroenLInks is reinventing Zwolle as a city that welcomes everyone's participation. That welcomes you wherever you were born, whatever gender you are, and whatever cultural background is. Our top priority is eliminating inequality.

Many of us are finding it increasingly difficult to live and thrive. A permanent paid job has become an unfulfilled dream for many people. We know Zwollenaars who have been refused from 350 job applications, and at the same time that employers are ready to do almost anything for good personnel. The COVID-19 pandemic made it clear for all of us that the right-liberal national policies have left us high and dry. It is painfully obvious that a very large number of people are vulnerable, with high levels of insecurity.

Today, in 2022, more than 2,000 children in Zwolle are growing up in poverty -- or in families struggling to get by. There are 6,100 households that are surviving on a minimum income or are on welfare. And these are the ones who are the hardest hit by any crisis, including Corona. These are the people who work for minimum wage, with a 0-hour (variable) contract or forced into the position of being a one-person company. Then there are the small businesses with no buffers who are the most vulnerable for lockdowns ... or downturns in their markets. Closing this gap is absolutely not "their own responsibility;" this lack of income and work security is a problem that we as a society must solve. So to prevent people becoming impoverished or crushed by debt, GroenLinks makes a robust choice for a preventive approach, easier access to a social safety net, support to find well-paid work and where necessary, extra schooling or training, That is, in effect, a new role for local government: stimulation in place of regulation, human dimensions in place of rules.

Any of us can end op in poverty, that's why GroenLinks is demanding that Zwolle addresses poverty in a focused and consistent way. Many organisations in Zwolle work together with the municipality in a poverty pact: Zwolle Free From/Beyond Poverty! Together we are seeking approaches to combat poverty, and we are proud of this co-operative effort.

Een jonge en een oude vrouw zitten samen aan tafel en lachen naar elkaar

ACCESSIBLE CARE AND SUPPORT

GroenLinks stands for good care and support for everyone in Zwolle who needs it.

Zwolle is a highly social city, where people care for each other and help when necessary. With the highest level of volunteers, we have a strong social foundation. We want to broaden and deepen this to form a social safety net, with aspects o prevention and early warning systems to ensure that those in need get help as quickly as possible. In this way we avoid worsening situations and a need for heftier measures.

The past city council term, we have taken big steps to improve healthcare and social support systems and make them more accessible. GroenLinks has plans for the coming years, to invest in neighbourhoods and stimulate residents to look out for and help each other. Where living, learning, and working go hand in hand with care and well-being. In this way we make Zwolle healthier, avoid accumulating problems, and support affordable healthcare.

We're not all self-reliant, and we have varying levels of social networks. When we need support or healthcare, whether professional or voluntary, it needs to be there for us, giving us the attention we need. We support a social safety net, as well as a healthy future; respecting those in need and giving them control over the response. Co-operation between intermediate organisations can help, and GroenLinks is supporting this as a strategy.

A CITY FULL OF VITALITY -- FOR ALL OF US

Zwolle lives, amazed by the arts, moved by sport.

Others belittle culture, sport and the events sector as "contributing to a good business atmosphere, these non-monetary qualities form, for GroenLinks, the fundamental building blocks of a city full of challenges, activities, and vitality, Accessible for everyone, close to home and from the first baby steps.

Culture connects, inspires, reflects, makes people happy and stimulates thinking and dreaming. It is in practice an essential condition for a good human life. And Zwolle lives as a cultural city. After a few difficult years, arts and culture in Zwolle are waking up and breathing deep. There is a new vision for the city with more funds for culture. GroenLinks plans to take this trend forward, and strengthen its implementation, Our city must shine and surprise us!

GroenLinks is proud of Zwolle's network of cultural icons, movers and shakers, small gem initiatives, incubators, and emerging talents.

Zwolle is also a city for sport. More and more of us are sporting out of doors, in our green parks and natural areas; our clubs, associations, and amateur art societies are blooming. GroenLinks is committed to advancing sport and recreation, supporting access for everyone to the fantastic facilities in our city.

Een concert met muzikanten op het podium
Een groep mensen met een regenboogvlag en regenboogattributen

ZWOLLE FOR ALL OF US

As GroenLinks, we stand for a city where everyone feels welcome, we can all be ourselves, and can participate as we will. No matter what you believe, who you love, or where you were born. We mobilise the power of meeting, acquaintance, and dialogue to learn to understand each other, become conscious of our prejudices and privileges, and to prevent discrimination. We live together, and that means that there is room for differing opinions, whether you have lived here for decades or you arrived only last week.

Zwolle belongs to all of us and our local government is accessible and service-oriented, The city government is not "big brother," but the older sibling that you trust, the place where you go for help or a question. We embrace local initiatives and make sure that young and old can participate in discussions and decisions about the city's future.