As of: February 18, 2024, 4:48 p.m
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Trees can be seen in the Dietenbach forest, which will soon give way to a new development area.
© Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa
A large new development district is being built in the west of Freiburg.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to come to the groundbreaking ceremony.
In other cities, too, new neighborhoods are being built in the fight against the housing shortage.
Freiburg/Stuttgart - There is still a clear view over fields and meadows, it is only around four kilometers to the city center: the planned Dietenbach district in the west of Freiburg is a project of superlatives.
In the future, 16,000 people are expected to live there.
“Dietenbach is of central importance in the fight against Freiburg’s housing shortage and rising rents,” is Mayor Martin Horn’s credo.
The non-party head of the town hall invited Chancellor Olaf Scholz to the groundbreaking ceremony.
According to the town hall, the SPD politician is now expected on February 27th.
The huge project is also leading to resistance in the lively Black Forest metropolis with over 235,000 residents.
There are several ongoing legal disputes that contributed to delays.
Farmers have already announced that they will come to the Chancellor's visit - the protests from farmers all over Germany are directed against the federal government's austerity plans, in particular against the planned cuts in agricultural diesel.
Municipal officials welcome the support for the new district.
“We realized early on that we needed a large, new development area,” said the non-party building mayor Martin Haag to the German Press Agency.
“Ten years ago, when we started, we were the exotic ones in Germany.
We’re relatively far along now.”
In order to curb the housing shortage in Germany, Chancellor Scholz believes that entire city districts must be rebuilt.
Scholz said in Berlin in October that 20 new districts are needed in the big cities on greenfield sites.
The head of government’s appeal was to “get rid of certain reservations on this issue”.
Housing construction continues to decline
However, the signs for housing construction are not good.
The Munich Ifo Institute estimates that only 225,000 apartments could be completed nationwide this year.
That would be 45,000 fewer than last year.
The reasons include, among other things, the increase in construction costs and loan interest rates.
And the slump in housing construction in Baden-Württemberg also threatens to continue.
According to the State Statistical Office, 26,452 apartments were completed between January and December 2023.
That was almost a third less than in the same period last year.
The number of building permits for apartments had also recently collapsed, which is why the construction industry in the southwest has been sounding the alarm for months.
Construction companies in the country no longer expect an upward trend this year.
Construction industry: Dietenbach could help stabilize the construction industry
It was only at the end of January that the president of the construction industry association, Markus Böll, warned that there was currently no prospects.
“The building permit numbers speak for themselves: things are going down,” he said.
The association also expects a further increase in company bankruptcies.
Because many companies are still processing old orders, the full extent of the crisis will probably not become apparent until spring.
The association represents around 1,600 companies from the construction and construction industries.
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Managing Director Thomas Möller hopes that the major project in Freiburg will provide impetus for the new building.
“This bold measure makes an important contribution to creating urgently needed new housing in the region,” he says.
It could help to stabilize the construction industry and at the same time offer the opportunity to realize innovative and future-oriented construction.
It is hoped that the necessary investments for the district will now be implemented quickly.
The new district is to be built largely climate-neutral
Freiburg also presents itself internationally as a “Green City” and therefore has a reputation to defend.
Covering with concrete like in the 1970s is therefore out of the question.
The new district with around 7,000 apartments will be built and supplied in a largely climate-neutral manner, as Mayor Haag assured.
Around half of the apartments are publicly subsidized rental apartments.
“Dietenbach is a special development area, simply because of its size.
It is unparalleled in the state and nationwide.” In a referendum in 2019, over 60 percent of the votes cast were in favor of the project.
Initial work is now starting in Dietenbach to develop the extensive site.
Haag sees the fact that canals are being laid and roads are being built there as an important sign.
However, the first high-rise buildings are not expected to be built until 2027 and 2028.
This was actually supposed to be quicker, but connecting to district heating and other infrastructure turned out to be more complex than initially thought.
“Hopefully it will also become clear to the population, including those who are still critical of the district today, that things are going well and that we should think constructively about how we can help shape it,” said Haag.
Among other things, environmentalists are taking legal action against the clearing of trees in a forest on the edge of the huge area.
According to the city, this intervention is necessary in order to relocate a supra-regional gas pipeline to a new route.
Major projects also in other southwest cities
Dietenbach is reminiscent of other large residential construction projects in the country: For example, a new district has been being built on the site of the former freight and marshalling yard in Heidelberg for more than 15 years.
Bahnstadt - according to the administration, one of the largest passive house developments in the world - is now on the home stretch.
There are currently three construction sites outstanding that have already been allocated and are being planned, said a city spokeswoman.
According to the latest data for 2022, almost 3,200 apartments have been built in Bahnstadt so far - and thus a large proportion of all new apartments in Heidelberg.
Almost 6,000 people now live in the young district.
Thousands work there.
In addition to the Bahnstadt, Heidelberg is also increasingly relying on areas that became available after the withdrawal of the US military.
Something similar is happening in Mannheim, for example.
More than 500 hectares of space became available there - with space for thousands of apartments that have already been completed or are still to be built.
Another major project is coming up in Stuttgart: As soon as the new main station goes into operation, the dismantling of the above-ground tracks will begin there.
In the following years, the new Rosenstein district will be built on the 85 hectares of land in a prime basin location.
The framework plan, which was approved in the fall, provides for up to 5,800 residential units, including schools, daycare centers, sports facilities and cultural institutions.
dpa