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Association complains about construction freeze for 80,000 apartments

2022-01-27T06:45:56.690Z


According to the real estate association, the abrupt end of state subsidies for energy-efficient houses endangers the construction of tens of thousands of apartments. Meanwhile, there are ideas on how new buildings could be subsidized differently.


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Flood of applications: Construction of apartment buildings in Hanover

Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / dpa

The Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW) warns that the sudden halt to state subsidies for energy-efficient new buildings will prevent the construction of around 80,000 apartments for the time being.

"Predominantly social housing that was already planned" were affected, said GdW general manager Ingeborg Esser of the "Welt".

Only if the subsidy continues can the housing industry continue to offer the lower rents demanded for social housing economically, she argues.

The alternative is that new apartments would be built in the future according to a significantly poorer energy standard, which jeopardizes the climate goals and cannot be in the interest of the government, emphasized the head of the industry association.

Politicians must decide between lower rents and more climate protection without funding.

For new buildings that meet the efficiency standards 55 and 40, which consume a maximum of 55 or 40 percent of the energy of a reference building, the federal government decided at short notice not to approve any more applications.

The previous government under Angela Merkel had already decided to end the subsidy by the end of January because such energy-efficient house types had long since established themselves as the standard and therefore did not require any additional subsidies from tax funds.

Since November, this had triggered a run on the state development bank KfW, which grants loans for such houses, so that the funds actually planned for this were significantly exceeded. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) then pulled the emergency brake. He spoke on Wednesday in the Bundestag of "uncovered budget promises". The energy standards are obviously so easy for builders to comply with that they will no longer be promoted as a normal building standard, he argued. The way in which the previous government allowed the loans to expire and the resulting run on them has proved to be a problem from the point of view of Habeck's experts.

The stop also applies to energy-related renovations of buildings, which recently led to clear criticism from consumer advocates, among others.

Habeck promised to ensure planning security again "quickly" with a new regulation.

Federal Environment Agency: Use the CO2 price for building subsidies

Meanwhile, the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has a proposal on how climate-efficient new buildings and renovations could be funded.

The income from the increased CO2 price is suitable for this.

"That would be a reliable contribution to the financing of the program and applicants could be entitled to funding if they meet all the criteria," said UBA expert Jens Schuberth of the "Rheinische Post".

Schuberth also sees the now ended subsidies for efficiency houses as hardly helpful for environmental protection.

"The funding program has not brought any significant increases in climate protection in the construction of new buildings," he said.

The criteria for the Efficiency House 55 are standard in new builds anyway.

However, the program could have been modified much earlier, the UBA expert continued.

It would also have been necessary to communicate the funding freeze to the builders much earlier.

The emergency braking in funding triggered a wave of protests among the lobby organizations in the construction and real estate sectors.

According to calculations by the GdW member companies, rents without subsidies would have to increase by EUR 1.50 per square meter in order to maintain the same energy standard.

The leading association GdW represents 3,000 housing companies in Germany, mainly municipal and cooperative.

The construction industry association also warned of the expensive consequences of the funding freeze for new construction projects.

"Announced rents could be increased or rental properties could even be converted into condominiums," says a paper according to "Wirtschaftswoche".

The changed economic situation will mean that the question of the housing construction target of the federal government will have to be asked again.

The traffic light coalition has set itself the goal of building 400,000 apartments per year.

In the paper from the construction industry, the stop is described as a “vote of no confidence in the housing and construction industry”.

kig/afp/dpa-AFX

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2022-01-27

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