The number by which Klara Geywitz is measured is 400,000.

According to the will of the traffic light coalition, this is how many new apartments should be built every year.

The SPD politician from Brandenburg, who has been in charge of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building since the beginning of December, is supposed to make it possible.

For the first time in more than 20 years, Germany has an independent ministry for this area.

The message from Geywitz on Tuesday in front of the blue wall of the federal press conference was unmistakable: at least the achievement of the new construction goals should not fail on the square.

Julia Loehr

Business correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

The ministry had the Leibniz Institute for Ecological Spatial Development and the Institute of German Economics do the math.

The result was exactly what the minister wanted: there are at least 99,000 hectares of development-ready land in Germany's cities and districts - an area the size of Berlin or four times the area of ​​Frankfurt am Main.

"The good thing is that we have potential," said Geywitz, clearly satisfied.

According to the researchers, between 900,000 and four million apartments could be built on the land.

She was for the "good middle," said Geywitz: "Two million would definitely be achievable."

According to estimates by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), slightly more than half of the space could be developed in the short term.

The institute is part of the portfolio of the ministry.

Geywitz emphasized that there is still building land in the big cities, where the high demand recently drove up rents and purchase prices so much.

"The development of the second row will be a big issue." On April 27, the minister wants to conclude an alliance for affordable construction between politicians and the housing industry.

This should deliver more results than the housing summit of the grand coalition, which produced many pictures from the chancellery in September 2018, but fewer new apartments than hoped.

Numerous unedited approvals

In the urban districts, BBSR boss Markus Eltges put the potential at 370,000 to 740,000 possible additional apartments.

However, that does not mean that the same amount of areas would have to be sealed - a concern that concerns green conservationists in particular.

In many cases, new living space can also be created by expanding attics or building over discounters and their parking spaces.

The conversion from office to living space is also conceivable.

However, Eltges also said that two thirds of the areas now identified as possible building land have already been earmarked by the municipalities for residential construction.

Some building permits have already been issued.

According to the study, the so-called construction overhang, the difference between apartments that have been approved but not yet built, now totals almost 800,000 residential units.

165,000 of these apartments are in the seven largest German cities.

According to Eltges, a major annoyance for those responsible on site is the lack of "willingness to exploit" the property owners.

Eckart Würzner, deputy president of the Association of German Cities and Lord Mayor of Heidelberg, also sees this problem: "Building areas that can be used immediately must not be left lying around for speculative purposes," he demanded.

Geywitz promised to make building more attractive by reducing bureaucracy.

As an example, she cited the parking space regulations.

"If you increase the density inside, the developers often have major problems in finding the necessary parking spaces." However, an underground car park is not absolutely necessary if the residents can be mobile without a car.

She also wants to hold talks on the previously prescribed "second escape route", which prevents some possible attic conversions.

According to City Day Vice President Würzner, 1.1 million apartments could be created with attic conversions alone.

However, he also pointed to the shortages of both building materials and craftsmen, which the war had exacerbated.

A large steelworks in the Ukraine was bombed, and the plasterboard industry was also “on the ground”.

Germany must invest more in its own production capacities in systemically important areas such as these.