CDU on housing

The CDU wants to support the purchase of a first owner-occupied home with a grant called "HeimVorteil BW." It would pay €10,000 per working person and €5,000 per child. Young families are the main intended beneficiaries.

The CDU wants to help people buy their first home. Each working person would get 10,000 euros. Each child adds 5,000 euros. This is meant to help young families most.

The program views home ownership as part of retirement provision and as an expression of freedom. It names high construction costs, higher interest rates and purchase fees as obstacles. The grant applies to a first home of one's own.

The CDU wants to make building new homes easier and cheaper, which it sees as the most effective route to affordable housing. It plans a new building category with lower standards, more land for construction, fewer requirements and faster permits.

The CDU wants more homes to be built. Building should become easier and cheaper. There would be a new type of building with less strict rules. Towns should release more land for building.

According to the program, high standards drive up construction costs, and not every home has to be built to the most expensive standard. For the new building category, every permitted deviation is to be used to cut costs and planning risks. The CDU wants to thoroughly thin out the regulations that surround building law. Municipalities are to get support in designating building land, with a mix of denser development in existing areas and new development zones.

The CDU wants to raise the state's social housing subsidies substantially and in future match every federal euro with a state euro. It wants to stimulate the construction of rental housing through better tax depreciation rules.

The CDU wants to spend more money on low-cost homes. The state should pay as much as the federal government. People who build rental homes should get tax benefits. People without a home should get one quickly.

According to the program, the state's share currently stands at 60 percent of federal funds. How the subsidies are awarded and used is to be reviewed and improved; ground leases are seen as a way to lower costs. At the federal level, the CDU wants a temporary special depreciation of 50 percent of acquisition and construction costs over five years. Tenant protection is to stay in balance with landlords' interests, with tenancy law distinguishing more between small landlords and large housing corporations. Homeless people are to be placed in housing quickly in cooperation with municipalities.

The CDU wants to change the rule that allows citizens' initiatives against the very first decision in a land-use planning process, arguing that this delays or halts projects. A new state development plan is to allow more space for housing and business.

Today, citizens can call a vote on their town's building plans early on. The CDU wants to change this rule. It says this delays many building projects. A new plan for the state should allow more land for homes and businesses.

For ongoing planning procedures, an early cutoff date is to apply after which new laws no longer affect the planning. The new state development plan is meant to secure competitiveness as a place to live and do business and leave municipalities room to act. For commercial sites, the requirement to connect new areas to existing settlements is to be applied more flexibly. Sites for extracting regional raw materials are to be secured for the long term and approved more simply.