Concrete gold, gentrification, luxury renovations - when it comes to living, Munich, the most expensive city in Germany, usually writes negative headlines.
But there is also good news.
Munich - Because something is happening in terms of alternative forms of living in Munich * - despite the pandemic.
Housing cooperatives and tenant syndicates are due to apply for a large project on the outskirts of Lochhausen in spring.
New place for the comrades!
City of Munich puts out sub-area in Lochhausen
There, south of Henschelstrasse, a new residential area is being built for around 1,000 people.
Around 460 apartments, open spaces, around 20 workplaces and two day-care centers are planned where there is still a gap.
The city of Munich invites tenders for the western sub-area for building cooperatives and projects in the tenement syndicate.
Six three-storey buildings with 80 apartments are to be built here, in which members of building cooperatives or syndicates are to move in.
It is not yet clear who is applying, says Nathalie Schonder from the Munich City Co-Construction Center, which is coordinating the project.
Various initiatives have expressed interest in the project, including the Raumfair, Stadtimpuls and Zinwo cooperatives, as well as the new WohnWandel initiative, for which it is not yet clear whether it wants to realize the dream homes of its founders and new members as a cooperative or as a rental house syndicate.
People in Munich who feel addressed have a good chance of getting involved in one of these initiatives (see text below).
“It's great fun to work on implementing your ideas of solidarity living,” says Markus Sowa.
"It just needs new forms of living and more flexible approaches, the housing market is no longer up-to-date," he says.
He will soon make the city a little more colorful with the cooperative, which he is on the board of which he is called Cooperative Großstadt.
"Our goal is that everyone helps everyone" Cooperative in Haidhausen
The cooperative was awarded the contract for the property at Metzgerstrasse 5b in Haidhausen and will now build a five-storey residential building with 490 square meters of living space there by 2024 - it doesn't get any bigger because the vacant lot is just 14 meters wide.
There will then be 75 square meters of living space per floor.
Solidarity should then be part of everyday life in the apartments: Here, the disabled should live with members of the cooperative and refugees.
"Our goal is that everyone helps everyone: the refugees support the disabled and they in turn help the refugees, for example when dealing with authorities," explains Sowa.
To implement the purchase of land and the construction of a house, the Cooperative Metropolitan Cooperative has joined forces with two other initiatives: the Federkiel Foundation and the Common Welfare Association.
It is the third project of the Cooperative Metropolitan Cooperative: it has already built 24 apartments in the trade fair city, and construction on 42 cooperative apartments will soon begin in Freimann.
The cooperative has 500 members and also accepts new members.
It is clear that not every new member gets an apartment straight away, but many people tend to think long-term, says board member Sowa: “Among our members, around a third are looking for an apartment urgently, another third are looking for a long-term and the rest depends on it to support our idea of living for the common good. ”Because it often takes time for something to move on the housing market, but the new projects show what is possible.
You can still participate here - housing cooperatives and syndicates
There are two models in which the residents are more than tenants - the syndicate model and the cooperative model.
Syndicates are an alternative to renting or owning
In the syndicate model, which emerged from the squatter scene, grassroots democracy and community count.
The tenement house syndicate was founded 22 years ago in the legal form of a limited liability company.
In the more than 130 syndicate houses in Germany, the residents alone decide.
They usually finance buying or building a house through many private lenders.
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Munich: Ligsalz 8 is a residential project in the Westend that is self-governing as part of the tenement syndicate.
After a renovation, it has been fully inhabited since 2008.
© Sigi Jantz
So far there is only one syndicate house in Munich, Ligsalz 8 on Ligsalzstrasse - but now a handful of tenant syndicates.
One of them is El Caracol, who probably also wants to apply for the project on Henschelstrasse.
Housing cooperatives in Munich
There are a good 50 housing cooperatives in Munich - including some that are more than a hundred years old and others that have been newly founded.
Members of cooperatives can get apartments.
However, many Munich cooperatives have an admission freeze.
Those interested have a chance at the following cooperatives that are interested in Henschelstraße:
▶ Raumfair: “People who are willing to compromise and want to take the design of their apartment and living environment into their own hands in a cooperative,” writes Raumfair.
Information is available from Thomas Winter mail@raumFAIR.de, by phone at 0941 2805215-2.
▶ Stadtimpuls: The aim of this cooperative is to “create affordable and sustainable living space in Munich in the long term and to enable a diverse, solidarity and inclusive neighborhood”.
More information is available on the Internet at www.stadtimpuls-genossenschaft.de.
▶ Zinwo: What is special about this cooperative is that members who live in a cooperative apartment can reduce their rent by subscribing to additional cooperative shares.
Further information at www.zinwo.de.
(Sas)
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