Giffey promises affordable housing and a social city

Created: 2022-01-27Updated: 2022-01-27 15:34

A plenary session in the Berlin House of Representatives.

© Wolfgang Kumm/dpa

For well over an hour, Franziska Giffey spoke in Parliament about what the Senate has planned.

After all, the coalition agreement is long.

The opposition brushes aside and believes there is no improvement in sight.

Berlin - In her first major speech in the Berlin House of Representatives, Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey promised more affordable housing. The SPD politician named a social and safe city for everyone as other important goals for the red-green-red Senate on Thursday. The opposition, on the other hand, was convinced that little would improve in the city in the coming years. CDU, AfD and FDP agreed that Giffey is more likely to “keep it up” instead of boldly starting out.

"The big social issue facing our city, and we all know it, is the issue of housing," Giffey said in her government statement. That is why the Senate has decided to counteract the lack of affordable housing. The goal is to build 20,000 new homes per year, 5,000 of which are subsidized homes for people with less money. "We want to speed up approval procedures and planning processes, designate residential building areas and further develop social housing subsidies," said Giffey, describing the way there.

In addition to the new building, tenant protection in the existing building is important.

Both will be discussed in the planned alliance for new residential construction and affordable housing.

Those involved, including the Senate, districts, associations, municipal and private housing companies and cooperatives, will meet for their first meeting on Friday.

An agreement should be in place by the summer.

In addition to affordable housing, another basic need for many people in the city is security, Giffey said.

Therefore, on the one hand, the Senate wants to ensure social security.

"It's about this city staying social, staying affordable, people not having to worry about losing their homes.

That they don't have to worry that they can no longer afford to make a living here in Berlin."

On the other hand, internal security is important for the Senate. “Only those who feel safe, who are protected from hostility, from hatred, from threats, from violence, can develop freely and feel free. And that's why it's important that we strengthen and support those who take care of our security in the city every day. This also applies to those who are committed to democracy in civil society and who are therefore attacked or attacked by some.

In her 80-minute speech, Giffey mentioned many other points that the SPD, Greens and Left Party have made in the coalition agreement.

This included a functioning and digital administration, the expansion of local public transport, climate protection, a strong economy and fair wages, the fight against homelessness, better schools and consistent action against enemies of democracy.

The Corona crisis also took up space: Giffey referred, among other things, to progress in vaccinations and promised a “restart” for the pandemic-plagued economic sectors.

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CDU parliamentary group leader Kai Wegner accused Giffey of not daring to start again, but of standing for an agonizing "keep it up". The projects of Red-Green-Red are alarmingly lacking in ambition, he said in his reply to the government statement. "One has the impression that you somehow want to cheat your way through." There is no vision, no overarching project. Even in the current Corona situation, the Senate paints a sad picture. The triad of the Senate is “test chaos, quarantine chaos, corona chaos”.

The AfD parliamentary group leader Kristin Brinker also had a bad hair on Giffey's government program.

"This Senate, this coalition gives no reason for hope," she said.

“Ms. Giffey's government program gets lost in the small-small.

This is not the program for a cosmopolitan city.

All this Senate has to offer are empty promises and rhetorical pronouncements.”

FDP parliamentary group leader Sebastian Czaja said to Giffey: "In your speech you wanted to draw a picture of the future of Berlin, but instead you gave a somewhat detailed presentation of the coalition agreement." Housing policy remains a weak point of this coalition.

“Anyone who actually wants to ignite a construction turbo in this city, as you suggest, will not end up sitting down at a table with expropriators.

That can't work.” dpa