This is a CTP of initiative: Impact Hub Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Soon after having settled at their new location at the Westerpark, the Impact Hub discovered that their lease for the space would be terminated considerably sooner than expected. When they signed the contract, the building was owned by the West City Department (the department of the municipality of Amsterdam responsible for that particular part of the city), who offered the Impact Hub “a great lease” (€10.000 rent a month). Although the initial lease was for five years, expectations were raised that the lease (and space) would be extendable. Soon after they had settled in, however, the Amsterdam City Council voted to change the zoning plan of the building, which allowed the West City Department to sell the building to a private commercial company. That company decided not to extend the lease, because they had other plans with the building, namely to transform it into a hotel.
This turning point was characterised by a long, difficult and very “intense” process of confusion, discussion and legal contestation, including “pages and pages of documents on very specific things”. This process was critical in the sense that it disrupted the development and management of Impact Hub Amsterdam. “We had just started to inhabit the place, we were still in the process (…) [We had] just spent all this money, and now we had to raise money again for a next one. We had just renovated our building, our programme was developing, things were getting rooted. Because we are a place-based community (…) [The discovery that we had to move again] introduced a whole level of managing community uncertainty, without being completely ready to do so.” (co-founder 1). This uncertainty also had business implications: “On a business side, it really affected our depreciation. We had to depreciate over 5 years and now were down to 3 years. It affected how our investment was perceived”.
In the meantime, about two years later, the Impact Hub Amsterdam has found a new place next to the Oosterpark in the east part of Amsterdam. The new location was announced in July 2016, and they planned to move at the end of 2016. The second interview with co-founder 1 about looking back at this ‘painful’ critical turning point was held after this new location had been confirmed and officially communicated.
Looking back at the critical turning point, it seems that it was also critical in the sense that it forced the Impact Hub to move out and find a new and bigger location, something which would have happened anyway eventually, but was now accelerated: “A consequence is that it forced us into a next level. A bit faster than we would have naturally grown (…). It would have grown anyways. Our business was growing at the same time as this uncertainty was introduced”.
There are several parties involved in this critical turning point. First, there is the West City Department, who first owned the building when the Impact Hub signed the lease. Second, there is the central Council of the City Department, who voted to change the zoning plan, thereby enabling the City Department to sell the building to a commercial party. Third, there is the commercial company who bought the building and decided to end the lease of the Impact Hub. Then there are the members of Impact Hub Amsterdam and the network around it. Last but not least, there are the other tenants i.e. other organisations in the building and the area around it.
The physical environment of the building is reminiscent of the actor constellation. The building in questions stands literally in between the park Westerpark (still owned by the City Department) and the Westergasfabriek terrain, an area with several restaurants, cafés and a cinema, which was already owned by the commercial company. Originally, when the Impact Hub signed the lease, the building was still part of the park and property of the City Department. During the process, it was incorporated into the commercial area of the Westergasfabriek.
The process through which it became clear that the lease would not be extended, was characterised by much confusion. It started with rumours and an article in the local newspaper, even before it was clearly communicated to the Impact Hub itself. “Many community members found out via the paper, a local paper. And it was published before we knew and had a chance to communicate to our own community".
What followed was “confusion and inquiry into the legalities of things”. Co-founder 1 recalls: “It was very hard to find out information and to find out our rights actually”. Even though “there was clarity about a decision”, namely the council voting, there was “lack of [clarity of] how that decision were carried out and how affected parties would be treated”.
Eventually, Impact Hub Amsterdam went to court to appeal the council decision. There were hired lawyers and property experts involved, including some from within the Impact Hub community. “We worked crazy hours to get the pieces together. (…) I had a lot of people working pro bono time. In that sense I felt supported”. However, going to court did not have the desired effect, as it was “essentially a City council decision: it was way out of anybody’s power”.
“It was very much a closed deal. Some people in our global community kicked in and asked ‘what if we find the money, what if we find a buyer?’ And I did actually find a potential buyer for the building, who then called the Municipality and was told it was not for sale, while I knew it was being sold because we were in this process! Things like that: it was not clear what was going on”. Co-founder 1 was also surprised about the fact that there was no public consultation with the local neighbourhood. “It is a public building, tax payer money being sold to a private party in a neighbourhood. I was surprised that people in the neighbourhood did not know”.
There was little to no support or involvement of the wider community in the neighbourhood or in Amsterdam’s urban networks: “We tried. Maybe it is a cultural thing. (…) It is almost like people expect these kind of things to happen and just give in. (…) I felt it was a social justice issue to me, but I didn’t feel people felt the same way about that. Nobody wanted to touch this. Nobody in the government wanted to touch this. (…) I think it was probably a backroom deal with the buyers. Some commitment, some promises… I don’t know, and I might never know. But I can’t accuse them of that, so I couldn’t publicly say much. Because I did not have evidence. The only thing that we could say is that it was unfair and that we needed support to find something. But nobody was supportive”.
The critical turning point itself includes a whole series of events. Starting with the voting by the city council on the 28th of January 2014 on the changed zoning plan, followed by numerous meetings to discuss and contest the implications of that zoning, in particular the selling of the building to the commercial company, and the subsequent decision by the new landlord to end the lease. The court meeting to discuss Impact Hub’s appeal was held on the 3rd of February 2015, and the final court decision was communicated on the 8th of April 2015 (Raad van State 201402484/1/R1).
An interesting related event prior to the critical turning point, is that many years before there had been a political decision at the Municipality of Amsterdam that the city did not have enough hotels. “In the last couple of 3 to 4 years there was a manifestation of many hotels. This is an outcome that we are seeing nowadays. When I see other potential places for the hub, a lot of them are turning into hotels. A policy directive was obviously made or an opportunity was created for hotels. We see that nowadays, that a lot of old buildings, like the conservatorium and other historical buildings are being turned into hotels”.
Another related event concerns the Dutch local elections on the 19th of March 2014, which meant that the council who voted to change the zoning plan was soon replaced by a new council. This new city council is supportive of social enterprises and formulated an Action Program on Social Entrepreneurship. This movement within the municipality became a close partner of Impact Hub Amsterdam.
A related process that followed from the critical turning point was the search for yet another place, including numerous meeting and visits to potential locations. The new location was communicated to the outside world on the 26th of July 2016 and the move took place in December 2016.
This whole critical turning point is in itself one large contestation, or a stream of contestations. ”It introduced a lot of distraction” and was experienced as “dismissive” and “very demotivating”. The two main contestations have been between the Impact Hub and the West City Department, and between the Impact Hub and the landlord to be. The Impact Hub felt that the City Department had a responsibility as original landlord to help resolve the unwillingness of the new landlord, which did not occur. ”The city put us in a tough spot. They should have helped. (…) They said ‘the buyer has to solve it’, but the buyer said ‘it is not my problem’. (…) Then the city said ‘we are not going to do anything about it; you guys have to figure it out’. So basically nobody was taking responsibility for us”.
Besides the actual decisions of the old and new landlord to sell and end the lease, co-founder 1 was also disappointed in their lack of willingness to look for alternative solutions. “Neither of the parties were [helpful]. Both of them said it wasn’t their responsibility. Which I don’t agree with”. The Impact Hub even tried to get all parties together in a room to sit around the table and discuss, but in vain. “We moved into this place to be collaborative with our environment. We were put in a directly polarising situation”.
Ironically, outsiders often assume that Impact Hub Amsterdam owes its success to its willing urban context. As described by co-founder 1: “Because everybody thinks Amsterdam is a social city in which the municipality offers a lot of possibilities to initiatives, such as this one, our community is seen as a product of being part of a liberal creative society. Yet our experiences, up until this time, of getting no institutional support, are completely the opposite”.
Co-founder 1 describes the relation between the Impact Hub and the Municipality, during that period as mostly “antagonistic”.The relation has since then considerably improved, as there are several collaborative projects with the municipality. In July 2016, co-founder 1 participated in an international event organised by the global Impact Hub network in Seattle, called “Unlikely Allies, Future of Cities”, and was invited to speak at a panel about the “shifted relationship” with the Municipality of Amsterdam: “They subtitled my talk “from court to courtship”. I thought that was fantastic”.
It is also interesting to note how the Council decision came about. Within the council, a coalition of several parties did not directly vote ‘against’ the Impact Hub, but they voted to change the zoning plan, which then enabled the new landlord to buy the building and end the lease. “What they all voted for is to change the plan. For us it is a vote against us because you are getting rid of us. Nobody seemed to care where we go. They think we just put up a bunch of desks in another empty space, that it’s nothing”. To the Impact Hub, it was particularly contradictory that the City Department on the one hand promoted social entrepreneurship in the city, but on the other hand voted them out of the building. At some point, for instance, members of one of the political parties that voted for the changed zoning plan, contacted the Impact Hub “wanting to make a video commercial about promoting social entrepreneurship in the city”. Co-founder 1 described this as a “schizophrenic” attitude: “we have political parties that come here and want to film us and believe that we are the future of social innovation in the city and then on the other hand the council votes against us to kick us out of this place because they want to build a fancy hotel.”
During the contestation over the ending lease, the Impact Hub made an effort to remain constructive: “We did not make a public scandal. We weren’t trying to provoke. We were really trying to come to some agreement with the parties (…) There was a suggestion from the community, to show up in the court room with 500 people… But we were trying to be reasonable, not act as activists. We were trying to make it work, to say ‘ok, once we accept we have to move, please help us to find a new location’.” This balancing act, between being frustrated and constructive at the same time, also came with an inner, more personal contestation: “How far do you go, how much do you fight, at what point do you let go? Do I have enough information? The contestation within myself, of what feels right and what doesn’t feel right, and to figure out how to have clear leadership in that”.
The ending of the lease and the court decision were not anticipated. According to the co-founder, property experts that were involved were very surprised by the decisions and stress that it is an uncommon thing to happen.
The council’s vote to change the zoning occurred in January 2014, so 2-3 months after the Impact Hub moved in in November 2013, and over a half year after the Impact Hub had signed the contract in July 2013. Furthermore, even after the council vote had taken place, it took very long for the implications of the changed zoning plan to be clarified. Even though “there was clarity about a decision (…) [there was] lack of [clarity of] how that decision was to be carried out and how affected parties would be treated (…). It was incredibly vague. (…) It took a long time to unpack it. It only started in the year after, a few months after we moved in, there were all these conversations about the future of the building”.
Co-founder 1 recalls that there were rumours, and that the new landlord later claimed that the information had been known before that the area would be developed into something else and that the Impact Hub would have to leave. “But the city was confirming that it was available for signing a long term contract. They offered 5 years or longer. In some sense there was a mixed message who to believe. Who do you believe? We believed our landlord, the city that was doing this, and not rumours”. The lack of clarity and anticipation, was one of the main sources of difficulty and frustration. “It could have been very different, very different if we would have known. If they said ‘we’ll move you to the East’, that would be a very different flavour than being left out”.
It also remains unclear to what extent the local West City Department anticipated this development. “I know they knew but I do not know which levels were all in the know. The agenda, the kind of inner decision-making, I don’t have clarity over that. The [City Department] basically pulled out for any comments and left us on our own. They absolved themselves from responsibility”.
One of the main lessons from this critical turning point is the importance of perseverance, vision and the community. One of the challenges in the process was managing the insecurity that was felt amongst the members, i.e. the social entrepreneurs that were using the space: “The lesson learned was balancing being very honest and transparent but we also wanted to make sure there was no unnecessary worry. That was a difficult place to be in”.
Co-founder 1 indicates that looking back, she would “have pulled rank faster” by e.g. talking to a mayor, but she also doubts whether that would have worked in the Dutch context: “I don’t know if that works. I find the politics a bit strange. (…) The problem is you cannot do this in this culture. Could we have been maybe a little more activist to do that? I cannot say that people would have agreed with me, with my sense of social justice and taking a stand for it. I was responsible for a community, business and people and had to consider the situation from what was best for the collective, not me. We needed gentle stakeholder management”.
An obvious lesson from this critical turning point, is being careful about future contracts and leases: “We are trying to get the longest lease we can have. We are very aware of designing for moving out. (…) Most of our investment, €200.000 renovation, was into structural stuff that is going to get thrown away… Stuff that is lost. Very little is moveable. I am not saying that every Impact Hub should be thinking temporarily. This is an odd case, it is not a common case”. When asked if and what they would do differently, co-founder 1 answers: “We did not do anything wrong. (…) Most people tell me it is quite unusual what happened, and that I am not going to find myself in a similar position. That’s what many many people have said. (…) [But] the effect has been that we have become very risk-aversive. We’ve looked at so many buildings. We’ve been in a number of negotiations. Making sure they can’t break the contract”. Impact Hub has developed concrete strategies to avoid such problems in the upcoming re-location. Co-founder 1 indicates that this particular experience has provided insight to always look deeper to find out all the things that need to be taken into consideration and to look beyond the story that is being told: “you have to dig in all kinds of places to find out the real things, like the nature of the lease and to really make explicit what you want”.
A last important insight concerns “the value of experts, absolutely a learning”. This insight is framed as particularly relevant in the context of social change organisations, where people often have the tendency to try and figure everything out on themselves, without paying professional experts to support them. “There are facts, there are people with legal expertise and it is actually really worth it, that expertise to figure out your rights. [Otherwise] you make up all kind of stories, or you might say something that you shouldn’t say. Also: writing proper documentation. If we had a meeting or something, we were going to make sure there was an email to agree that this was the meaning. That etiquette you find naturally in business, and is something you don’t find in the social change world, that same rigor”.
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