[Click here for the 2022 update]
2023 Update
Nederlands
Geschreven op 02-01-2023
Beste Lezer,
Hierbij een hoognodige update over Vrij Parkeren Leiden. We hebben al een tijdje niks van ons laten horen. Niet hier, maar ook niet op Instagram. Dit betekent niet dat we gestopt zijn met dingen uitvoeren in en rondom het pand. Dit betekent alleen dat de dingen waarmee we bezig waren niet online konden worden geplaatst of nog niet klaar is. Nu de rust is wedergekeerd, willen we jullie even op de hoogte brengen van twee dingen.
Ten eerste, de rechtszaak:
In 2022 hebben we op sociale media en op de website een post gemaakt dat er een rechtszaak aan zat te komen. Dit is niet een gelogen statement geweest, maar de tijd heeft het tegendeel bewezen. We zijn inmiddels een maand of zes verder en hebben niets meer gehoord van de eigenaar. We verwachten dus dat het niet meer zo’n vaart zal lopen. Desondanks hebben we het geld van de voku’s apart gezet voor een mogelijke rechtszaak later. Het overschot aan donaties hebben we uitgegeven aan onderhoud aan het pand. We blijven dus op onze hoede, maar de situatie ziet er positief uit.
Ten tweede, wat is Vrij Parkeren Leiden?
Wij zijn natuurlijk een kraakpand. Maar, in ons vorige statement hebben we ook laten weten dat de woongroep wat problemen had. Dit is inmiddels een vrij stabiele situatie geworden en mede door dat zijn wij met een andere blik naar het pand gaan kijken.
Ons pand heeft praktisch gezien eigenlijk twee delen: een woonhuis en een winkel. Dit is van origine en vergunning-matig ook zo het geval. Wij blijven deze tweedeling ook aanhouden. In het woongedeelte wonen een aantal mensen, die daar uit voornamelijk uit noodzaak wonen en minder om ideologische redenen. Deze mensen zijn in meer of mindere mate politiek actief en geven elk hun eigen invulling aan hun activisme.
Evenementen organiseren wij “beneden”, in de kelder en de evenementenruimte. De frequentie en invulling van deze evenementen wordt op dit moment bepaald door de motivatie, energie en interesses van de mensen die bij VPL wonen. Dit gaat op dit moment om bijvoorbeeld voku’s, kraakspreekuren en hopelijk binnenkort ook een weggeefwinkel. Deze evenementen organiseren bewoners van VPL samen met anderen (wil je ook helpen? Kom langs of e-mail ons!) .
Ook wordt de evenementenruimte gebruikt door Onbeschoft Distro. Dit is een platform/organisatie die allerlei politieke en creatieve dingen organiseert. Onbeschoft staat organisatorisch los van VPL en iedereen die dat wil kan aansluiten en meehelpen.
We hopen dat het nu wat duidelijker is, voor jullie als ‘buitenstaanders’, wat VPL precies is en hoe je kan aansluiten om deze plek nog toffer te maken.
Met strijdbare groet,
Vrij Parkeren Leiden
English
Written on 02-01-2023
Dear Reader,
Hereby a much needed update about Vrij Parkeren Leiden. You haven’t heard from us for a while. Not here, but also not on Instagram. This does not mean that we have stopped doing things in and around the building. This just means that the stuff we were working on couldn’t be posted online or isn’t finished yet. Now that things have settled down, we’d like to update you on two things.
First, the lawsuit:
In 2022, we made a post on social media and on the website that a lawsuit was coming. This has not been a lie, but time has proven otherwise. It’s been six months since we’ve last heard from the owner, so we don’t expect a court case to happen soon. Despite that we have set aside the money from the voku’s for a potential court case. We have spent the extra donations on maintenance on the building. So we remain on our guard, but the situation looks positive.
Secondly, what is Vrij Parkeren Leiden?
We are ofcourse a squat. However, In our previous statement we also mentioned that the living group had some problems. This has now become a fairly stable situation and partly because of that we have started to look at the building with a different perspective.
Practically speaking, our building actually has two parts: a residential house and a shop. This is originally and licence-wise also the case. We want to stick to this separation. Upstairs we have the house, where a couple of people live mostly out of necessity, and to a lesser extent because of ideological reasons. Each person is politically active to a more or lesser extend and everyone does activism in their own way.
Events are organized “downstairs”, in the basement and the event space. The frequency and type of events are, as of now, determined by the motivation, interests and energy of the people who live at VPL. For example, we have been organizing voku’s, kraakspreekuren and are hoping to also have a freeshop in the future. These events are organized by people who live at VPL together with others (come by or e-mail us if you also want to help out!).
The event space is also used by Onbeschoft Distro. This is a platform/organization that organizes political and creative things. Onbeschoft is organizationally separate from VPL and everyone who wants can join and help out.
We hope it is now a bit clearer, for you as ‘outsiders’, what exactly VPL is and how you can join to make this place even more fun.
With combative regards,
Vrij Parkeren Leiden
2022 Update
Written on: 12-05-2022
Hi people,
We’re going to tell you a little bit about us, our squat and the first 3 months of living at Vrij Parkeren.
We’ve squatted Vrij Parkeren since the 6th of February and the reveal of the squat was during ‘Woonrevolutie’, a housing protest in Leiden on the 13th of Februari. The house is quite big, but because it has been out of use since at the least 2002 there is a lot of maintenance to be done on the house. For the first week we didn’t even have a working toilet. This is also the reason this update is being uploaded quite late. We’ve been very busy with our basic needs like electricity, water, plumbing, roof leakages, etc.
We are now at the point that the living-area of the building is as good as finished with just a few chores left to do.
Then, there is the event-space. This used to be used a store before it was abandoned by the owner. The owner actually stated in her letter that this “storage” is a reason for eviction. We would actually agree. If you are using a building for storage, that is a reason for eviction since the building is not abandoned. However, we would argue that this isn’t the case here. Most stuff was molded beyond repair because of the leakages in the roof. The owner stated that this stuff that was stored here was “very important personal stuff”. Well, if we were storing important stuff, we wouldn’t let it mold in a room with leakages, then put buckets beneath those leakages and never visit again. So, in short: the owner left a bunch of garbage in this building and never bothered to clean it or keep it safe from neglect. Most stuff is completely worthless because of the mold, but anything that didn’t seem completely fucked over by mold or seemed personal/important/valuable was put away by us in a secured room and inventoried on a list. This project of cleaning the event-space and inventorying the owner’s garbage took us about 3 weeks. Currently, the only thing left to do in the event-space is cleaning (mold), painting, placing furniture and installing a kitchen. This is what we’re currently focused on but we’re also taking a little bit of a break from all the hard work.
So, we’ve been talking about a ‘we’. you might be wondering who we are. That is actually a very difficult question. The people active in helping with the squat have changed over time. Even the living group has changed and will change again in the near future. We’re not able to reach a consensus on who we are, what we want to do and what our values and principles are. All we know is that there this house was empty and there were people in need of a house and that we want to use the event-space and are striving towards some kind of anarchism. We’re still figuring things out from there. Hopefully we will not be evicted before we do.
xxx
VPL