European tech giant’s expansion stirs opposition in its hometown
ASML, a critical player in the global chip industry, turned a sleepy Dutch suburb into a boomtown, but locals have had enough. By Diederik Baazil and
Veldhoven, a tidy small town in the Netherlands’s industrial heartland, has a zoo, a climbing park and, more recently, a brewing controversy over plans by ASML Holding NV to expand its headquarters. Local activists and politicians are concerned the semiconductor company is growing too big, too fast.
While the equipment maker says it’s addressing complaints that range from glaring office lights to making a housing squeeze worse, a key vote in December on permission to increase capacity — normally a mere rubber stamp — now hangs in the balance.
“ASML was used to a situation in which they could do whatever they pleased and the municipality would just say yes,” said Pieter Phoelich, chairman of a community group opposing the company’s expansion. “But we see a turnaround taking place.”
Isolated grumbling coalesced into organised opposition after ASML notified residents of its intentions to build high enough and close enough to nearby homes that some would get no sunlight for as long as two months, according to Phoelich, a 54-year-old engineer.
The group represents about 100 households, including some residents working for the company that makes machines needed to produce chips that run everything from iPhones to Teslas.
Communities around the world have increasingly started to push back against excess development, especially as the climate crisis makes sustainability more urgent. The issue is particularly pressing in the Netherlands, one of the world’s most densely populated industrial countries.
“We have to be aware of the fact that people don’t want them to grow forever, there are limits,” said Marcel Delhez, Veldhoven’s mayor. “That’s the conversation we have to have continuously, now more than ever.”
ASML dominates life in Veldhoven, where it employs more than 14,000 people — equivalent to nearly one third of the town’s population. Its campus consists of a jumble of high-tech buildings, including clean rooms that have powerful filters to keep out microscopic dust particles, which could ruin sensitive equipment.
While the company also has production facilities in Berlin and San Diego, Veldhoven is its heart and soul, and responsible for the bulk of ASML’s roughly €19 billion ($19.6 billion) in annual revenue.
That turnover generates taxes that pay for daycare, hospitals and bike paths in the suburb of Eindhoven, where the spin-off of Royal Philips NV was founded in the 1980s.
Propelled by surging global demand for chips, the Dutch manufacturer targets sales of as much as €40 billion by 2025 and plans to invest about €500 million a year to expand capacity globally.
The Veldhoven site is reaching its limits, though. It’s hemmed in on one side by a hospital and the other side by a nature preserve, making expansion towards a nearby neighbourhood the company’s only real option.
The zoning proposal, which is due to be voted on by the 29-member city council on Dec 20, includes the rights to build as high as 45 metres.
Such an imposition would be devastating for Joop van der Velden.
The 64-year-old artist, who grew up in Veldhoven and helped start the opposition group, uses a shed in his backyard as his studio and as a site for workshops. The company’s plans would put buildings within a few metres of his property.
“The company is growing so fast that you see a building and think, was this here yesterday?” he said while walking with his dog through ASML’s landscaped campus.
The main grievances of the group are about the height of the buildings, the glare of office lights and the whirring of the machines.
To ease concerns, ASML says its intention is to not build higher than 20 metres and going above that is just for “extreme circumstances,” according to Lucas van Grinsven, the company’s head of community engagement.
“It’s made other concessions including turning most lights off at night, but can’t meet the group’s requests to build below ground because clean rooms need to be on the same level,’’ he said.
“ASML has confidence in the democratic process, which is now out of their hands,” Van Grinsven said, declining to comment on what would happen if the company loses the vote.
Aside from complaints from neighbours, the company also faces broader issues related to congestion and strains on resources.
The region’s electricity grid has been wracked by capacity issues, and constraints could impact growth at other companies, including ASML’s suppliers, according to Paul van Nunen, director of local industry group Brainport.
“We have lots of innovative manufacturing in this region. They must be able to expand and grow,” he said. “We have serious concerns.”
Authorities and residents also worry about how the influx of new workers will intensify a housing crunch and polarise the community.
ASML recruits hundreds of people a month, and they come armed with paycheques that others can’t match.
Veldhoven is a tight cluster of traditional middle-class Dutch homes. There are windmills in the area, and soccer and field hockey clubs near AMSL’s headquarters, but not enough houses for the planned growth.
The company initially started in a small office with just 100 employees and now occupies more than 225,000 square meters of space — roughly equivalent to New York’s Grand Central Station.
A housing shortage is a nationwide problem in the Netherlands, but it’s even more acute in and around Veldhoven. ASML and other nearby technology firms like NXP Semiconductors NV often recruit people from abroad.
In recent years, the town has had the highest share of houses bought by expats in the country, exceeding Amsterdam by a stretch, according to figures from the Dutch association of real estate agents. Mieke Verhees, a lawmaker in nearby Eindhoven, said authorities were having to weigh the benefits of job growth against the struggle to build enough homes for the growing population.
“For a company it’s easy to hire a few extra people, but building housing takes a long time,” she said. “A lot of people are coming from abroad which makes housing an extra big challenge.”
ASML’s Van Grinsven said the issue was a priority for the company, which wants to help accelerate construction of homes in the area. “But it doesn’t plan to go as far as buying homes for its staff like Philips has done.
“The intention is to grow the pie not to take a piece out of the pie,” he said.
“ASML has been a source of pride for the people that live in its hometown, but sentiment is starting to tilt as the tech giant stretches the limits of the community,’’ said Maarten Prinsen, leader of the biggest local party Hart voor Veldhoven.
“It is impossible to think about Veldhoven without ASML, but the company has to understand it has a responsibility towards the people,” he said. “They have to be good neighbours.”
The company is growing so fast that you see a building and think, was this here yesterday? JOOP VAN DER VELDEN 64-year-old artist