The extent to which Mayor Klaus Lederer (left) and Vonovia boss Rolf Buch had fought in the negotiations on the Berlin “Alliance for New Housing and Affordable Rents” was also revealed on the day of signing: There was “still room for improvement” in the agreement with the concessions of the housing industry, said Lederer, in view of distributions to investors in the amount of 37 cents in return for each euro of rent received.
Whereupon Vonovia board member Buch, on whose stock corporation the attack was aimed, countered: “Repeating false facts does not make them more correct”.
Both signed the alliance agreement anyway. Unlike the Berlin Tenants’ Association and the Central Real Estate Committee.
The industry association sees too great an economic burden on the industry as a result of the compromises, which, according to Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD), bring more for Berlin’s tenants “than is even discussed in other countries”.
But nothing really enforceable, judged the Berlin tenants’ association, but only voluntary commitments. Therefore, the tenant representatives did not sign.
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Giffey calls the two important participants in the negotiations the “two poles that are as far apart as possible” and their rejection of the negotiated result as a “sign that we are already a bit in the middle.”
Bettina Jarrasch (Greens), Senator for Transport, made it clear that the Greens are only grudgingly going along by emphasizing and repeating that this is only a first step, a start.
That work should be done on “greater commitment” and that an evaluation by the end of this year would have to show “how far we’ve come.”
The alliance brings “three keys to affordable living in the city”: New construction, re-letting and protection against excessive rent increases.
The head of Berlin’s largest housing association, BBU Maren Kern, praised the “breathtaking speed” at which the alliance came about.
And the spokesman for the six state companies that have been committed to providing social housing since 2017 is “very happy” because he expects the alliance to “accelerate” the districts and Senate without which the construction of 100,000 apartments by 2010 would not be possible .
Lederer made it clear that the fight is now going on by acknowledging that the housing industry, which is geared towards “maximizing returns”, “must be overcome and abolished”.
That fits with the balance of the initiative for the socialization of large companies with more than 3000 apartments: For “Deutsche Wohnen
