Cat vaccination in COVID-19 times (July 14, 2020)

While in previous years the cat’s vaccination was quite straightforward, this year was special. Using this plan:.,

the ideas of the vet  and some discussion, we got special permission from Idealis to use the Common Barrack for this purpose.

Rules:

  • One way: one door in, one door out;

  • One person at at time. So these are housemates checking how their cat is being vaccinated

  • One cat a a time (more or less)

  • Everybody wears a face mask: Sandra and Bonny (left), organiser Loes (right) and

…all cat owners (some say “cat servants”).

However, not all cats were very happy..

 

Droef Circus

On July 3rd 2020, some Droevendalers et al. organised a circus-like performance on the field just behind Droef (= one of the fields of the Experimental farm Droevendaal from Wageningen UR).

  

There were quite some spectators; many from Droevendaal, but also former Droevendalers and neighbors. Before the start of the show, some self-made stuff was being traded.

The show itself consisted of some starting-up entertainment, a lot of areal silk and fire juggling. And it was amazing!

Pictures taken by Maartje, 37

Report & Pics Green Work day 14-7-2019

Last Sunday morning we focused on removing invasive plants, so to prevent them from setting seed for next year as they are only starting to flower.

We filled up the bakfiets 2 times, as we cleared out every single invasive plant from the mail boxes to the area around the bike path close to the rear entrance to Droef.

We were a modest group of 6 people from houses 69, 95, 45 and 107. It was a relaxed summery session accompained by fresh lemonade, Kombucha, berries and fresh breeze on a bakfiets ride.


As we discovered our newest addiction we will repeat next Sunday!

Road partly blocked on June 29 and 30

Today, we got a letter – in Dutch – from the municipality about traffic issues on June 29 and 30 (2019) because of a bicycle competition. More info – in Dutch – at https://www.nk2019.nl/bewoners. In short: the  roads indicated in the following map, so mainly the Mansholtlaan (N781)  will be very limited accessable for cars from 8:00 till 17:00 on both days. It will be accessable, but perhaps less easy to cross, for normal cyclists and pedestrians. I don’t know (yet) if it is possible to go to/from Droevendaal by car over the campus. The public transport will more or less keep functioning.
Please keep this in mind if you plan moving or whatsoever.

To be updated if more information becomes available.

Construction plans Born Oost (overview third information evening)

Hey guys,

I am bringing you an update on the Born Oost meeting of the 8th of April. 🙂 The ‘appendix’ contains some more information about the discussion.

I think the main questions, as far as I could tell, at this point are:

  • How will it look from our perspective? And what are the design options for that? Can we get certain guarantees about the green corridor ? (Since they did not provide us with any new information about this.)
  • How will the issue with the road and cars be fixed?

I asked something about the issues with the cars on the Manholtslaan and Simon Vink (speakesperson Wageningen UR) answered that the ‘flow of traffic’ would be smoothened by the installment of traffic lights and the configuration of the already existing ones, thus fixing the problem. However, I am skeptical about this, because there is still an (already existing) issue with a bottleneck of narrow roads along the Diedenweg and the Nijenoord Allee. From the Diedenweg you can go on a road that leads to Arnhem trough Renkum and it is also not huge, thus making it another possible bottleneck. The Nijenoord Allee leads in the direction of Dijkgraaf. You can look it up on Google Maps to get a better visualization of it.

I heard from Luc that there are plans for busses every 5 minutes during rush hours, but I also don’t think a lot of people necessarily will take the bus to work. Because 1. public transport is super expensive in the Netherlands and 2. a car is a status symbol and some people are susceptible to those kinds of societal norms.

There are also some neighbors contesting why there has to be 80 000 m2 meters of floor space and not less. WUR seems not really open to discussion. (more info in the ‘Appendix’).

The neighbors have made a group app to organize some meetings about the development plans and approached us to participate as Droevendalers. I think they would really appreciate our involvement as well as maybe speaking up in the future, since we are with a lot of people and that could make a difference. I think this would be a good opportunity to work together with them or at least stay updated in what is going on. 🙂

Next meeting is on the 24th of April at the municipality hall.

Appendix:

For us specifically:  The first idea was a building of 4 and 3 stories (resp. ca. 18 and 14 meter), close to 101 – 107. See figure. Another (and most likely) option is three story buildings along the whole line.

The buildings will start 12 to 15 meters from the bicycle path and they plan to extend the kind of barrier/wood wall thing which is already there between NIOO terrain and the bicycle path. However, this is the unfortunate part, they did not make any drawings or designs about how it would look from our side. As I understood from previous reports of other Droevies, they promised to bring more info relevant for us, but there was not any. They focused only on the neighboring houses, not on Droevendaal. I asked whether the designs for buildings close to us was also discussable and one of the ‘design people’ answered that it depends on the type and form of building, but again no real designs how it would look for us.

More general:

I asked about the influence of new buildings on the groundwater levels in the surrounding area. They answered that they were going to restore a creek and construct more water bodies to compensate for water displacement by buildings.

I asked why they would invest in office spaces while there is not enough space for students to work or to have class. Somebody from the WUR said that there were plans for a new building where ‘Starthub’ (behind Zodiac somewhere) is currently located.

Neighbors have also asked for the design plans without tree (coverage), because in the winter the trees don’t have leaves that act as coverage. I don’t know about the non-tree designs, but the PowerPoint from the meeting would be spread around for people to look at.

There were questions about why the WUR had chosen for 80 000 m2 of floor space and approximately 2000 workspaces. One neighbor mentioned that before it was only about 600 workspaces and somebody from the Wageningen Municipality mentioned that was in the plan in 2013, but that is different now. The WUR seemed (in my observation) quite determined to avoid discussion about why they had chosen for 80 000 m2 and why it couldn’t be less. One neighbor mentioned that it was hard for them to give feedback on ‘shiny design plans’ when they were not even agreeing (at all) with the amount of floor space/buildings and somebody argued that the WUR should go back a few steps in the consultation process. Somebody asked if buildings with two layers were an options, but the answer was a resolute ‘no’. It is commercially not interesting to develop such buildings.

To me personally (read again: personally) it seemed like the WUR team is trying to guide the neighbors and us towards one specific way, towards these designs, presenting it as the only way to go. They focus specifically on the feedback for their designs, but don’t seem flexible in discussing, for example, the amount of floor space at all. Somebody from the WUR argued that these meetings so far were about things that would affect the local residents, such as light/view/noise pollution. Neighbors seem to be cautious about vocalizing their favor for one design or the other, because they seem to be afraid that it will be taken as a approval by the WUR or the developers (while they do not really approve). This kind of reminds of guiding wildebeest into a coral by convincing them with plastic funnel that the only way is the way forward and the rest is blocked of.

Loes, 103