The Association for Housing Construction calls for more roof additions and the conversion of office buildings for more living space.
Photo: dpa/Daniel Bockwoldt
For decades, more and more social housing has been falling out of price maintenance. Today there are only around 1.1 million social housing units, in 2006 there were still over two million. The traffic light government has stipulated in its coalition agreement to create 100,000 new ones every year. “That’s a very ambitious goal, considering that fewer than 30,000 have been created in each of the last few years,” comments Lukas Siebenkotten, President of the German Tenants’ Association. “First of all, we have to ensure that the number of social housing units does not continue to decrease,” says Siebenkotten. It takes a lot of money to do that.
The association alliance for housing construction, which also includes the central association of the housing industry, the trade union IG BAU and the Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW), had invited to a housing construction day on Thursday. Siebenkotten believes that the problem cannot be solved with the current funding alone. More financial resources are needed for this. However, not everything can be regulated by building anyway. You can also do something in stock. “For example, by binding occupancy and by ensuring that rents do not continue to rise,” says the head of the tenants’ association.
The seven representatives of the other associations, on the other hand, mainly advocated more new construction. According to the alliance of associations, this requires low bureaucratic hurdles, shorter approval procedures and effective funding. In addition to the structural development of free areas, it is also necessary to add a storey to the roof of existing buildings. Around 1.5 million new apartments would be possible with such on-top floors. There is also potential for the conversion of commercial properties into residential buildings. This is also much cheaper compared to new construction. Due to more home office, some office space would no longer be needed. A total of 1.9 million apartments could be created as a result of the conversion. According to the alliance of associations, the opportunity to create significantly more living space without requiring an additional square meter of building land must be used significantly more.
In addition to the creation of more affordable rental apartments, the alliance is also in favor of fulfilling the desire of more people to have their own four walls in the future. Homeownership offers households with low and middle incomes in particular protection against slipping into old-age poverty as a result of high rents. “The traffic light coalition must now pave the way for climate-friendly construction and modernization that is affordable for everyone,” said GdW President Axel Gedaschko. “Increasingly higher standards overwhelm both builders and tenants financially and do not bring the desired climate effect.”
A study commissioned by the alliance of associations and commissioned by the Kiel construction consulting institute Arge comes to the conclusion that around 50 billion euros are currently being invested in energy-related refurbishment every year. If the rate of modernization and requirements increase as politically demanded, this sum will quickly triple or quadruple.
The authors of the study therefore recommend state funding of at least 30 billion euros per year. Federal Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck, on the other hand, spoke at the housing construction day of excessive funding for renovations to create an efficient house. The Greens Vice-Chancellor recently stopped subsidies for climate-friendly construction. However, as of next week, new applications for grants can be made, at least for renovations, Habeck announced. In addition, there should be new construction funding from March – but only for a higher standard than before, with reduced funding rates and capped at one billion euros. According to Habeck, the criteria for energy-efficient funding have not been tightened for years. In the future, this will be made “more demanding”.
In its coalition agreement, the traffic light had decided to create a climate-neutral housing stock by 2045. According to the authors of the study, this goal can only be achieved through additional tax incentives and new subsidy programs. The consortium’s scientists are therefore calling for the costs and benefits of climate protection modernization to be carefully weighed up in order not to make living disproportionately expensive. According to the alliance of associations, the newly created Federal Building Ministry is a first important sign on the way to affordable housing and affordable climate protection.
Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) said on Thursday that the federal government would make another billion euros available to the federal states to create social housing with the standard of an “Efficiency House 55”. “But if we want to build 100,000 social housing units in Germany every year, we will need significantly more than these two billion,” stressed Geywitz. It also depends on whether she can convince Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) to invest in this priority, explained Geywitz. The federal states would also have to go along with the financing.