Berlin (dpa / bb) – In view of the sharp rise in construction prices, the left is demanding more money from the state for municipal housing companies. “It is important that we enable municipal housing construction even in the crisis,” said the spokesman for rents and housing for the left-wing faction in the Berlin House of Representatives, Niklas Schenker, of the German Press Agency.
He suggested using a large part of the annual budget funds of 740 million euros earmarked for housing subsidies, which have so far been granted as low-interest loans to private and public builders, directly to finance municipal housing construction. Another possibility is to increase the equity of the municipal companies from the state budget.
With the help of the housing subsidy, which was increased by around half from the budget year 2022, more affordable social housing is to be created for people with little money. The target is 5000 per year. Builders receive cheap loans from the state as well as certain grants and in return commit themselves to socially acceptable rents for 30 years.
Schenker pointed out that the apartments then usually fall out of the social bond and the owners increase the rents sharply. The municipal companies, on the other hand, ensured stable rents over the long term. “That’s why we have to do everything we can to ensure that local authorities can build more efficiently, faster and better.”
The six state-owned companies currently have around 340,000 apartments, which is about a fifth of the rental apartments in Berlin. The declared goal of the red-green-red Senate is that an average of 20,000 new homes are built each year by municipal, cooperative and private companies. According to the coalition agreement, half of the apartments are to be built “in the public interest and affordable segment”.
The explosion in energy prices, the increase in the cost of building materials, supply bottlenecks and a shortage of skilled workers are making it increasingly difficult for municipal housing companies in particular to build economically at all. At the same time, politicians expect low rents, even for new buildings.
Against this background, Urban Development Senator Andreas Geisel (SPD) recently expressed the idea that local authorities should also build and then sell condominiums in order to refinance social rents in new buildings. Schenker thinks that’s wrong and insists on the “social service mandate” of companies, which stipulates the construction of affordable rental apartments.
He sees a “logical contradiction”. communal societies,” he said. “Or I offer the apartments so expensively that only upper income brackets can afford them. And I have to say: If we’ve had one thing too many in Berlin in recent years, then it’s expensive condominiums.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220805-99-281243/3
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