Affordable housing to be one of ‘Top 5’ election topics in Germany

Affordable housing – or, rather, the lack of it – will be ‘one of the “Top 5” election topics’ as Germany’s federal elections draw closer, according to Dr. Ronald Rast, co-ordinator of Germany’s new ‘Stimuli for Housing’ campaign.

Around 30 organizations and associations from the construction and property sectors in Germany have joined forces to devise a 12-point plan for the campaign that will be presented to politicians as a ‘to do’ list. Architects, city planners and the German Tenants’ Association (DMB) as well as the Union for Construction, Agriculture and the Environment (IG BAU) have also joined the campaign.

‘If people are to be able to benefit from affordable housing, Germany needs to come up with new housing regulation,’ Rast warned.

The 12-point plan includes a demand for increased jurisdiction on the part of the federal government regarding social housing subsidies because housing is a basic need that from 2020 onwards should not be the sole responsibility of the federal states.

Germany is suffering from huge pent-up demand for such housing, according to the campaign. It is estimated that the country needs at least 80,000 extra social housing apartments per year. The government will need to continue its social housing promotion after 2019 and federal states will need to double their budget for it if they hope to improve the situation.

The campaign is also calling for an additional capital allowance in expensive regions of Germany, including several cities in Baden-Württemberg, thereby providing a time-limited incentive for the construction of affordable rental units.

And to further the building of homes, brownfield sites and mixed areas should be more widely – and more quickly – identified in cities, according to the municipal, federal and state organizations. The masterplan is available on the central association of the German housing industry (GdW) website: http://web.gdw.de