Stagnant housing construction SPD wants to take a closer look at long-term lease agreement with initiative after criticism

In recent years, compromises with initiatives have been made to avoid referendums, and the Hamburg Senate has been pleased with these efforts. But now that the SPD and the Greens have agreed to the initiative "No profits with land and rent," it is flying in the face of the SPD and the Greens. This is happening at a time when housing construction is already slowing down due to rising costs and interest rates, and the Senate has 10,000 new goals every year to approve residential units that are unlikely to be accessible.

The housing cooperatives in Hamburg expressed their displeasure on Tuesday. A direct criticism of the agreement reached with the initiatives "No profits with land and rent" was made at a gathering where Hamburg's mayor peter tschentscher (SPD) was present.

which stipulates that land will only be distributed through long-term leases, that social rents will be occupied for 100 years, and that municipal land will no longer be sold to private investors. The constitution ought to include all of this language.

Matthias Sass, board member of the allgemeine deutsche schiffszimmerer-genossenschaft eG and chairman of the Hamburg housing cooperative association, stated at the association's annual kick-off event that the agreement will make up for the dearth of affordable housing in Hamburg. The construction of affordable housing by the cooperatives on city-owned land is seriously jeopardized by the compromise with the initiatives.

With the compromise, "a very small number of people had far too much influence on something that we have stood for for a good 150 years: the provision of affordable housing for those segments of the population that really depend on it," according to Sass. If the citizens of Hamburg had been given the opportunity to vote, he would have backed it.

Saß claims that this procedure has harmed the Hamburg Alliance for Housing, which has been successful. "If there had been a referendum, I am certain that our association, with its 230,000 members who live with us, would have been a very strong supporter.

The leader of the SPD faction claims that there are no different viewpoints, and the SPD appears to view the compromise with skepticism. The SPD parliamentary group in Hamburg's chairman, Dirk Kienscherf, responded on Tuesday, saying: "We will now look more closely at the conditions of the heritable building right contracts.

The current state of the housing construction industry as a whole is "extremely tense," according to all available information. There is a need for additional support given the circumstances as the framework conditions are very challenging due to the general trend in interest rates, inflation, and the lead times for building materials.

".

But now that the SPD and the Greens have agreed to the initiative "No profits with land and rent," it is flying in the face of the SPD and the Greens.