There is a lot of hassle in Best since the municipal council decided to lower the noice standard to 75 decibels. This has quite some impact on the summer events that normally take place in the city centre. They will probably overexceed the 75 dBa norm and if so, they are not allowed anymore.
Last week I wrote an article for the Eindhovens Dagblad about the Koetshuis-garden, because people feel all these city centre events have a negative effect on the plants and trees in there. I received a response from Aaldert van der Vlies, council member of the Christenunie Best. He states that I mentioned the word Park while talking about the garden. According to Aaldert, that is not correct. When the streets of the city centre were re-designed according to a so-called Shared Space concept the garden got a different status: more or less a road! And as a result of that, motorized traffic is now permitted there.
Aaldert states that the municipal council failed to notice that consequence. That is why he recently submitted a motion to make it a pedestrian zone again, but unfortunately that motion did not make it … so now, officially, the word Park can no longer be used to designate the Koetshuis-garden.
Harrie van Vroenhoven, chairman of the Heritage Association Dye van Best, also argues that we should handle the Koetshuis-garden more carefully. At the time, residents had been trying to ensure the garden would not be sacrificed to new buildings, and their protest turned out to be succesful. But later on, when a new appartmentbuilding was situated next to the garden, already some plants and trees dissappeared. All the summer events organized in the park have also taken their toll.
According to Harrie we should be more considerate. The garden contains trees of more than 100 years old and there are two special trees planted when Queen Beatrix turned 50 and King Willem-Alexander was inaugurated.
We are curious about what will happen with all the protests going on, coming from the different camps in Best.