Laak and Binckhorst: the cheapest district in the city, next to the newest

The average home in Laakkwartier and Spoorwijk was valued at 249,000 euro in 2025, the lowest figure of any district in this guide and 134,000 euro below the city average.

Next door in the Binckhorst, where almost everything has been built since 2015, the average is 386,000 and only 8% of it is owner-occupied.

Two adjoining districts, one very old and one barely finished, and they are the two places in The Hague where the city’s next twenty years are being decided.

Laak

Laakkwartier and Spoorwijk together hold 44,684 people in 24,140 households, which makes this the largest district in the guide by a wide margin, at a density of 16,690 per square kilometre.

It takes its name from the Laak, an old peat stream that still runs through the middle of it into the Haagvliet.

Laakkwartier was built around 1930 to the principles of the Nieuwe Haagse School, and Berlage had a hand in the layout: the raised towers on the two squares that divide the kilometre-long Goeverneurlaan into three sections are his.

Forty-five per cent of the stock predates 1945, 91% of it is flats, and a great deal of it has been restored over the last two decades with selective demolition and replacement in keeping with what was there.

The origin figures are the most striking in the city.

In 2025, 18% of residents were of Dutch origin, 26% from elsewhere in Europe and 55% from outside Europe.

Average income was 26,300 euro per resident and 32,400 per earner, against 35,200 and 43,900 across The Hague.

Twenty-nine per cent of homes are owner-occupied, 34% are social and 36% are private rental.

Say it plainly: this is the poorest district in this guide, and it is also the one where a normal salary buys the most.

Both things are true at once, and which matters more to you depends entirely on what you are looking for.

The Binckhorst

The Binckhorst became an industrial zone after The Hague annexed it in 1907.

A city gasworks went up with two 53-metre gasholders, and after the war Escher’s Machinefabriek of 1957 was the largest factory hall in the city when it was finished.

For most of the last century this was where the concrete plants, car dealerships and scrapyards were.

A master plan in 2009 recast it as a mixed living and working area under the name Nieuw Binckhorst Zuid.

How many homes that actually means is worth getting right, because the figures quoted in property advertising are not the legal ones.

The Omgevingsplan Binckhorst, adopted on 29 November 2018 and in force since 7 March 2019, permits the first 5,000 homes, and that ceiling has been reached: roughly 2,700 delivered, about 1,500 under construction and around 800 in permitting.

The city’s own district page talks about 7,500 to 8,000, and a joint area programme with Leidschendam-Voorburg and Rijswijk, consulted between 1 September and 13 October 2025, sets out growth to between 10,000 and 12,500 homes.

Everything above 5,000 needs a new planning framework first.

The change is already visible in the population: 1,270 residents at the end of 2022, 3,425 by mid-2025, and 4,126 in 2026.

Eighty-one per cent of the housing stock was built between 2015 and 2025 and 98% of it is flats.

Ninety-two per cent is rented and only 8% owned, which tells you these are investor-built rental blocks rather than owner-occupier developments.

Average income is 49,600 euro per resident, high, and household size is 1.6, low.

It is a district of well-paid single people in new one-bedroom flats, and there are 1,390 registered business establishments sharing the same square kilometres with them.

The Rotterdamsebaan opened on 5 February 2021, with traffic running from the 19th, connecting the A4 and A13 to the city ring road through the 1,860-metre Victory Boogie Woogie tunnel, whose entrance sits on the Binckhorstlaan.

It cost around 595 million euro and it is the reason the redevelopment became possible at all.

The money

In Laak, 249,000 euro of average WOZ value buys a flat considerably larger than the same money would get in the Zeeheldenkwartier or the centre.

Private rents are correspondingly the lowest inside the city boundary.

If your budget is tight and you need space now, this is where it is.

The caution is that a district with 36% private rental and low incomes attracts the worst end of the letting market.

Read rental scams in The Hague and tenant rights, deposits and contracts before you hand over anything, and if a rent looks wrong for the size of the flat, the Huurcommissie route in renting in The Hague is the one to use.

Estate agents in The Hague handle a smaller share of this market than private advertisers do.

In the Binckhorst you are renting new-build from a professional landlord, which is a cleaner transaction and a more expensive one.

Service charges are real, the buildings are well insulated, and the flats are small.

Expect a modern studio or one-bedroom at a price that would get you two bedrooms three streets into Laak.

Getting about

Laak’s advantage is Den Haag Hollands Spoor, which sits on its northern edge.

From there you have the intercity network without going near Den Haag Centraal, and the fares are in trains from The Hague.

Trams run along the main axes into the centre, and The Hague trams and buses covers the network.

The Binckhorst is the weak spot, and everyone involved knows it.

It was built as an industrial estate and its public transport still reflects that.

A tram line 1 extension through the district is planned at a cost of around 575 million euro, and until it is built, residents rely on buses, bikes and the tunnel.

If you are considering a new flat here, check the actual walking distance to a tram stop rather than the developer’s map.

There is one hard fact about the Binckhorst that developers’ brochures tend not to lead with.

It is one of four areas in The Hague designated autoluw, low-car, where residents are issued no parking permit at all.

The others are Palaceplein, the Energiekwartier and CS-Oost with the Grotiusplaats.

If you move to the Binckhorst and own a car, the city will not give you anywhere to put it, and the municipality’s own project record concedes that disadvantages may arise from building heights, a lack of parking provision and extra traffic.

The permit rules for everywhere else are in parking permits in The Hague.

Both districts are flat, central and eminently cyclable, which is the real answer.

Buying a bike in The Hague explains the market, and bike shops and repair in The Hague are plentiful along the Goeverneurlaan.

Saturday, and the rest of the week

Laak’s shopping is spread along the Goeverneurlaan, the Rijswijkseweg and the streets off them, and it is the most genuinely international retail in the city: Turkish and Moroccan greengrocers, Surinamese and Indian shops, Polish supermarkets, halal butchers and a lot of places selling one thing extremely well.

The international food shops in The Hague are concentrated in this corner of the city and in the Haagse Markt a short way west, which is covered in the Haagse Markt and other markets.

De Haagse Hogeschool has its campus in Laakhaven, next to Hollands Spoor, with 23,993 students in 2025.

That population shapes the northern end of the district: cheap food, late opening, a lot of bikes and a rental market geared to single rooms.

The Binckhorst’s social life is the thing the developers actually sell.

The Caballerofabriek, the old cigarette factory, is now studios, offices and hospitality; the area has picked up bars, breweries, event spaces and creative businesses in old sheds, and on a Friday night it is one of the more interesting places in the city.

On a Tuesday in February it is an industrial estate with flats in it.

Both descriptions are accurate.

The honest drawbacks

Laak recorded 3,135 offences in 2025, about 70 per thousand residents, essentially the city average of 69.

It is not the dangerous district its reputation suggests and it is not a quiet one either.

What it genuinely has is poverty, in visible form, and the problems that go with it.

If you have not lived in a working-class European city district before, visit at several different hours before you decide.

The crowding is the underlying issue and it is measurable.

Laak was designed almost a century ago for around 30,000 people and now holds about 47,000.

High turnover is the second half of that: a large migrant-worker population means homes change hands quickly, and the practical effect, as the district’s own advocates put it, is that people no longer know their neighbours.

It is the opposite problem from Benoordenhout’s, and it makes making friends here a matter of joining something rather than waiting for the street to introduce you.

The Binckhorst’s crime count of 679 across 4,126 residents looks alarming until you remember that 1,390 businesses and a motorway tunnel entrance share the same statistical area, and that most of what is recorded there happens to vehicles and premises rather than to residents.

The Binckhorst’s real problem is that it is a building site and will be one for years.

Twelve thousand eight hundred homes by 2040 means cranes, closed roads, dust and the constant arrival of new blocks next to your window.

Anyone moving in now is buying the district it will be, not the one it is.

And neither district is green, quiet or near the sea.

If any of those three is on your list, Loosduinen and Kijkduin or Ypenburg and Leidschenveen do the job better, and which district suits which life sets out the trade honestly.

Sources

• AlleCijfers, wijk Laakkwartier en Spoorwijk (gemeente Den Haag): 44,684 inhabitants in 2026; 24,140 households and average household size 1.8 in 2025; origin 18% Netherlands, 26% Europe, 55% outside Europe in 2025; average WOZ value 249,000 euro in 2025; 29% owner-occupied, 34% corporation rental, 36% private rental; 91% flats and 45% built before 1945; average income 26,300 euro per resident and 32,400 euro per earner in 2024; population density 16,690 per km2; 3,135 registered crimes in 2025; buurten Laakhaven-Oost, Laakhaven-West, Laakkwartier-Oost, Laakkwartier-West, Noordpolderbuurt and Spoorwijk
• AlleCijfers, wijk Binckhorst: 4,126 inhabitants in 2026; 1,870 households and average household size 1.6 in 2025; origin 27% Netherlands, 16% Europe, 57% outside Europe in 2025; average WOZ value 386,000 euro in 2025; 8% owner-occupied and 92% rented; 98% flats and 81% built between 2015 and 2025; average income 49,600 euro per resident and 59,600 euro per earner in 2023; 1,390 registered business establishments; population density 2,556 per km2; 679 registered crimes in 2025
• AlleCijfers, gemeente Den Haag: average WOZ 383,000 euro in 2025, average income 35,200 euro per resident and 43,900 euro per earner in 2024, 69 registered crimes per 1,000 inhabitants in 2025
• Dutch Wikipedia, Laakkwartier en Spoorwijk: Laakkwartier built around 1930 to the architectural principles of the Nieuwe Haagse School; named after the old peat stream the Laak, which runs through the middle of the district into the Haagvliet; the layout by Berlage including the raised towers on the two squares dividing the kilometre-long Goeverneurlaan into three; restoration with selective demolition and new building in keeping with the existing character
• Dutch Wikipedia, Binckhorst (wijk in Den Haag): an industrial zone after annexation by Den Haag in 1907, with a city gasworks and two 53-metre gasholders and Escher’s Machinefabriek of 1957, the largest factory hall in The Hague on completion; the 2009 master plan establishing Nieuw Binckhorst Zuid as a mixed living, working and leisure area; the Binckhorstlaan as the main axis splitting the area in two and carrying the entrance to the Victory Boogie Woogie tunnel; population rising from 1,270 at the end of 2022 to 3,425 by mid-2025; a planned tram line 1 extension costed at 575 million euro
• Gemeente Den Haag, Omgevingsplan Binckhorst: the plan secures “de eerste 5.000 woningen”, adopted 29 November 2018, in force 7 March 2019, amended 3 March 2021, with a Raad van State ruling of 24 November 2021 and adjustment on 21 April 2022; the gemeente’s own Binckhorst district page refers to 7,500 to 8,000 homes
• Projectenboek gebiedsontwikkeling Binckhorst: “De planologische grens van 5.000 woningen die het huidige Omgevingsplan Binckhorst biedt is bereikt”, with roughly 2,700 delivered, about 1,500 under construction and around 800 in permitting, and an expansion of 7,000 to 8,000 homes requiring a new planning framework; the joint Den Haag, Leidschendam-Voorburg and Rijswijk area programme, consulted between 1 September and 13 October 2025, describing growth to between 10,000 and 12,500 homes in the Binckhorst
• Gemeente Den Haag, resident parking permit page: no resident permit is issued in four low-car areas, Palaceplein, Binckhorst, Energiekwartier and CS-Oost/Grotiusplaats; the municipality’s project record notes “Nadelen kunnen ontstaan door bouwhoogte, een gebrek aan (parkeer)voorzieningen in de Binckhorst en door extra verkeer”
• Den Haag FM, 15 December 2022: “Laak is bijna 100 jaar geleden ontworpen voor zo’n 30.000 inwoners. Inmiddels wonen er zo’n 47.000 mensen”, and “Doordat er veel arbeidsmigranten wonen wisselen de huizen snel van bewoners. Daardoor kennen mensen hun buren niet meer”
• Dutch Wikipedia, Rotterdamsebaan: “Op 5 februari 2021 is de Rotterdamsebaan geopend”, with traffic from 19 February 2021; it connects the A4 and A13 with the city ring road; total length 1,860 metres of which 1,640 metres enclosed; final cost around 595 million euro
• Dutch Wikipedia, De Haagse Hogeschool: “Locaties van De Haagse Hogeschool bevinden zich in de Haagse wijk Laakhaven, vlak bij station Hollands Spoor”; 23,993 students in 2025