Amsterdam residents have reacted with bewilderment to city council plans to end what they see as an infestation of untidy flower pots.
“Operation Pot”, as local media have dubbed it, is an initiative in the central district of the Dutch capital to regulate the pots that residents can use: two, maximum, and no larger than 50×50 centimeters. They must have been made of “sustainable” materials and can only be placed against the facade. According to the note summarizing the measure, all flower pots placed in parking lots, or under trees, will be confiscated.
At a meeting on September 3, Amélie Strens, municipal head of the central district, assured that neglected pots are unsightly, harm biodiversity and make facilities difficult to access for strollers and people with reduced mobility.
“An intern spent several days going downtown and inventorying over 900 pots,” he said. “They don’t look like pretty, attractive pots anymore,” he added. “They’re going to put stickers on them with a QR code and the question, ‘Am I anyone’s?’ Adopt me! ’ If no one responds in six weeks, the city will clean them up.”
According to Strens, the priority is to put an end to the “excessive” placement of pots. “Little by little, some residents ended up putting a pile of flower pots near the door of their house,” he says. “There were excesses that really threaten accessibility and cause friction between neighbors.”
“Public space belongs to all of us”
Some Amsterdammers are glad that the city is doing something about the problems with crowded sidewalks. “Public space is vulnerable, it belongs to all of us, but at the same time it belongs to no one,” says Rogier Noyon, chairman of the local group Voordestad. [Por la ciudad].
“It’s difficult with the green issue because it has acquired a sacred aura, and residents think that anything green is good, but the space is important for people with disabilities, those who use walkers, those who have strollers…,” he explains. “The job of the city council is to make it clear that public space belongs to all of us, but also that this does not mean that it is the law of the jungle.”
Others, however, criticize the authorities’ plan and point to the large amount of public space taken up for other reasons, such as parked or abandoned bicycles, the terraces of licensed bars, garbage and the 22 million tourists who spend the night in the city each year.
Christian Democratic Alliance councillor Rogier Havelaar said not a single cent of public money should be spent on enforcing the law to improve the condition of flower pots. “I don’t think the city council should do that,” he said at a plenary session. “If there’s a pot in the middle, you push it aside; what’s not done is to establish 31 rules for an entire neighbourhood.”
Perplexity in the streets
On the streets of Amsterdam, residents reacted with perplexity to the project. “The future is a city with all kinds of plants, a kind of food forest,” says Hungarian citizen Karoly Almoes, who at 79 has set up a bench surrounded by vegetation in front of the door of his house in the city. plastic flowers, fairy lights, a cactus and a miniature clementine tree.
Ryan Pugh, 24, points out that the city recently replaced the canal-side parking in his neighbourhood with vegetation that attracts butterflies and bees. He says the two-pot limit “is ridiculous.” “I have at least 10 of them… They’re not encouraging neighbours to take ownership of the street and make it more welcoming for everyone.”
The start of the anti-flowerpot measures will be “a sad day”, says Bert Nap, former editor of the local newspaper from Old Binnenstad and a livability activist. “We need to take care of the residents who love where they live and like to decorate it,” he says. “If they’re not choosing the right vegetation, maybe the city council could educate and encourage people to garden responsibly.”
Other free-spirited Amsterdammers say they have no intention of complying with the new regulations, even though the city is advocating planting directly in permitted “sidewalk gardens” as a more sustainable alternative. In one corner of the Rechtboomssloot canal, a sort of flowerpot library is bubbling wildly. “Dear Neighbors,” one label reads. “If you have a cutting or a plant, feel free to take a pot and add it here; every little bit of green helps.”
Translation by Francisco de Zárate.
