Too few affordable apartments and rising rents - the SPD opposition presented an action plan for more living space and affordable housing on Tuesday in the immediate vicinity of the State Chancellery in Düsseldorf.
"The situation on the housing market in North Rhine-Westphalia is untenable," said SPD party leader and parliamentary group leader Thomas Kutschaty.
Düsseldorf- In many places the rents are so high that they eat up the income of households.
Between 2010 and 2018, the rents for new buildings in North Rhine-Westphalia increased by 29 percent.
However, real wages have only risen by an average of eleven percent.
Rent and utilities should not account for more than 30 percent of disposable income.
In cities like Cologne, Dusseldorf, Dortmund, Bielefeld or Bochum, however, at least half of the households would spend more money on warm rent.
In North Rhine-Westphalia around 18 million people live on rent.
NRW needs 100,000 new apartments every year, said SPD parliamentary group vice-president Christian Dahm.
Of these, 25,000 apartments would have to be rent-linked.
The conversion of rental apartments into condominiums must be limited.
More and more apartments fell out of the social bond - "two to three apartments every hour," said Kutschaty.
“We have to build, build, build.” But legal instruments would also have to be used to stop the rental price trend.
"We always talk a lot about home ministries and home politics," said Kutschaty, indirectly criticizing construction minister Ina Scharrenbach (CDU), who is also home minister.
"For me, the central place is home: my own apartment," said the opposition leader.
“Three rooms, kitchen, hall, bathroom - every family should find a good and affordable apartment where they would like to live.
That must not be an unattainable dream. ”Nor could pensioners have to leave their ancestral district because rents exploded.
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