The need is great in the Berlin construction industry. Inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and staff shortages are causing new construction figures to plummet and building prices to skyrocket. That doesn’t go well with the need on the Berlin housing market, which is just as existential – with less than one percent vacancy.
Two crises that collide like wrecking balls: Building Senator Andreas Geisel therefore proposes that municipal housing companies also build condominiums. At 15 percent, the home ownership rate in Berlin is lower than almost anywhere else in Germany. Increasing it can mean security for the middle class. But Geisel acts like a king without a country in the coalition.
The Greens, Left and parts of the SPD in the House of Representatives have not yet broken away from the dogma of rent caps and nationalization as far as possible, even in times of dire need. But if the municipal housing companies are to take over new construction on a large scale, as the left-green opponents of Geisel’s proposals would like, new ways of financing are needed. And if more social housing were financed with a small proportion of property per residential area, that would be in the best sense of the word: solidarity.
