Gap vacant lots for years: stone desert instead of social housing

Five years ago, two new houses with subsidized urban apartments were to be built on Sulzbogen.

There is still a vacant lot there - which raises old fundamental questions about municipal housing.

Fürstenfeldbruck

- The project didn't sound too complicated. Two urban residential buildings on Sulzbogen were to be demolished and replaced with new buildings. The city council decided unanimously in October 2014. For around three million euros, 13 subsidized rental apartments were to be built within two years, and a daycare center was also to be integrated. At the same time, it was decided to demolish and build new urban apartments on Parsevalstrasse. These were ready in 2016. Since then, not much has happened in terms of urban housing, although hundreds of Bruckers with a housing permit are waiting for affordable accommodation.

Three years ago, the city administration found that there were only 611 subsidized apartments in Bruck, a rate of just four percent.

At the same time, more and more older apartments are falling out of social commitment, around 350 new subsidized apartments are needed to compensate for this, according to the building authority.

Social housing: a lot of changes

In 2019, the city decided on a slightly higher mandatory social housing quota for certain private construction projects.

However, the city itself did not decide on any noteworthy projects of its own.

And there is still a vacant lot on the Sulzbogen to this day.

The city has long since given up the plan to erect the buildings itself.

The decision to demolish the old building was unanimously passed in 2014 in the city council.

The plans for the replacement buildings were presented in June 2015.

By 2016, the buildings should be in the passive house standard.

Then the first change requests followed, such as additional basement rooms.

Offices were not commissioned with the planning until 2016.

Social housing and the price in the construction sector

During these two years, prices in the construction sector continued to rise.

When the construction work was to be commissioned, offers for the originally calculated costs could not be received.

The city administration recommended that the project be crushed and the after-school center built elsewhere.

But the majority in the city council wanted to stick to the project.

The aim was to collect the costs with a collective tender for several construction works.

The next rescheduling took place in the spring of 2019: Childcare places were so urgently needed that the after-school care center was decoupled from the planning and wanted to be built on Cerveteristraße.

It will be ready in autumn 2021.

For this, more apartments should be built on the Sulzbogen.

Social housing on your own

The city wanted to continue to build the 18 planned apartments on its own.

In the summer of 2019, the city council voted for the first time whether the construction project should not be outsourced.

This was rejected with 20:15 votes.

The building authority promised to be able to implement the project.

Then the pandemic increased the pressure on the city's budget, and the building authorities complained about increasing sick leave.

And so in the summer of 2020 there was a slim majority in favor of looking for a property developer.

He is to take over the property on a long lease for 70 years and build 18 apartments - with a 40-year social commitment in the form of income-oriented funding from the Free State and full occupancy rights for the city.

The city misses out on rental income, but there are no building costs in the budget.

Social housing: negotiations drag on

In a bidding process, Oberbayerische Heimstätte, a construction company in the district of Upper Bavaria, expressed its interest. But the conclusion of the contract dragged on. At the beginning of May, the city announced on request that a specific completion date for the apartments should be set in the contract. However, due to bottlenecks in the construction sector, setting a realistic reference date is difficult. At the end of May it was said that the contracts were with the notary. Details are not known and the agreement has not been officially announced.

The fact that the award has been going on for almost a year is increasingly causing displeasure - and again raises old fundamental questions. Christian Götz (BBV) recently sarcastically remarked in the city council: "We would not have lost any time." Markus Droth (Free Voters) throws mayor and city administration Failures before: “As city councilors, we had our share in the rescheduling decisions. But even after that it went too slowly. "

The Sulzbogen shows that one has to talk again about the establishment of a municipal housing company.

"Then the budget and city administration would not be burdened and the urgently needed housing construction would go ahead faster," says Droth.

The district's housing association will “certainly not be able to meet the demand in Bruck on its own”.

The municipal building department is considered understaffed and overloaded.

With the upcoming development of the air base and the overdue revision of the urban land-use planning, the work is no less.

So far, however, only Droth and the SPD are clearly in favor of a municipal housing association.

Five years ago, the city council had unanimously instructed the administration to at least examine the establishment of its own housing association.

A result is not yet known.