display
Potsdam (dpa / bb) - In the past year, significantly fewer building permits were issued in both Berlin and Brandenburg.
In the capital, the building supervisory authorities reported 20 459 approved apartments, the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office announced on Tuesday.
That was 9.2 percent less than in the previous year.
The numbers have thus fallen for the fourth year in a row.
Overall, the number of approved apartments is still at a high level, according to the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing.
"With more than 20,000 permits, we are creating the necessary conditions so that further living space on a large scale can be created in Berlin," said Urban Development Senator Sebastian Scheel (Die Linke).
The district offices had fewer applications, said a spokeswoman for the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office of the German Press Agency.
"If there is a reduced entrance into the offices, then nothing can be approved."
Why fewer building inquiries were made is not entirely clear.
Corona could be one of many factors: the application deadline has been partially extended due to the pandemic.
But fear of the rent cap in Berlin could also play a role, said the spokeswoman.
display
A decline can also be observed in Brandenburg: there, with 13,303 approved apartments, around 9.6 percent fewer permits were issued than in the previous year.
Of these, 12,097 apartments will be newly built.
Most of them (1569) are to be built near the new airport, in the district of Dahme-Spreewald.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210316-99-845320 / 2