CDU on housing

The CDU sees more housing as the only route to affordable housing and therefore wants to cut construction costs and requirements. A task force is to simplify procedures; converting offices and adding stories to buildings are to become easier.

The CDU wants building to become cheaper. A working group should make rules and procedures simpler. Offices should more easily become apartments. New floors should be allowed on top of existing buildings, including supermarkets.

No new requirements are to be added in planning procedures, and permits are to be handled digitally and faster. The parking provision of the Hesse building code (section 52(5)) will be reviewed so that municipalities can again decide for themselves, for example on bicycle parking. Permit-related obstacles to adding stories are to be removed. Urban development funding stays in place, federal money is fully co-financed and supplemented with advice for owners of unused buildings. To cut costs for excavated soil, municipalities are to get incentives through the fiscal equalization system to create landfill capacity; recycled building materials are to be easier to use.

The CDU wants to enable more people to buy a home and plans to pay a "Hessengeld" grant for the first purchase of an owner-occupied property. This is paired with adjusted subsidized loans and initiatives at federal level for tax relief.

The CDU wants to help people buy their first own house or apartment. The state should pay money for this. Each buyer should get 10,000 euros. Every child adds another 5,000 euros. State loans should also reach more people.

The Hessengeld amounts to 10,000 euros per purchasing person and a further 5,000 euros per child; it applies until the federal government allows exemptions from the real estate transfer tax. Loan programs of the state-owned WiBank are to be adapted to higher interest rates, and income limits for the "Bestandserwerb" (existing property) and "Neubau" (new build) programs are to rise. The CDU wants to talk to the federal government about tax deductibility of loan interest for owner-occupied homes and better rules for the Eigenheimrente and the Wohnungsbauprämie (home-savings schemes). The stated reason is that ownership supports retirement provision and frees up rental housing.

The CDU wants to scrap the review required before rental apartments in larger buildings can be converted into condominiums. Rules on Zweckentfremdung (use of housing for other purposes) are also to be fundamentally revised so owners can decide more freely about their property.

The CDU wants to give owners more freedom. Today there is a review before rental apartments become owner apartments. The CDU wants to abolish this review. Other rules on how housing may be used should also become looser. The CDU rejects a ban on single-family homes.

The review currently applies to buildings with more than six apartments. In the party's view, everyone should determine how to use their own property. The misuse rules, which restrict using housing for purposes other than living, are to leave more leeway. The CDU also rejects efforts to prohibit single-family or semi-detached houses on land-conservation grounds.

The CDU wants municipalities to be able to designate new residential building land faster and more easily. Financial incentives, a digital land register and subsidies for development costs are meant to help.

The CDU wants more land for housing. Towns should be able to set up new building areas faster. They should get money as an incentive. The state should offer a digital list of suitable sites.

As part of the review of municipal fiscal equalization, the CDU wants to work out how municipalities can be rewarded for new sites, since new developments cause high follow-on infrastructure costs. A joint initiative with municipalities to gain building land is planned, mainly on brownfield and conversion sites, supported by a state-provided digital register of potential sites. A joint federal-state program is to be examined that would reimburse municipalities up to 30 percent of direct development costs if they designate additional building areas by the end of 2025. Smaller municipalities are to get advance financing for site development.

The CDU wants to secure affordable housing through housing benefit, the purchase of occupancy rights and more practical subsidy rules. It rejects tightening rent regulation, as well as speculation with building land or vacant apartments.

The CDU wants to keep low-cost housing. The state should buy rights so that social housing stays cheap. The new housing benefit should reach people quickly. The CDU does not want stricter rules on rent prices.

The Wohngeld (housing benefit) reform is to be implemented quickly and geared more toward families with middle incomes. By buying occupancy rights, social housing is to stay affordable after the price-control period ends. Subsidy guidelines will be reviewed; cost-driving minimum standards, for instance on apartment size, number of units and fittings, may be relaxed. Publicly owned housing companies should focus on affordable rental housing, and cooperatives are supported. The CDU wants to keep a balance between tenants' rights and landlords' interests.

The CDU wants more senior-friendly and accessible housing. It wants to support housing complexes for older people statewide, subsidize the conversion of existing homes, and expand multigenerational forms of living.

Older people should be able to stay in their homes for a long time. The CDU wants to pay for changes to homes. One example is adding elevators. There should also be more housing for seniors.

The program argues that most people want to stay in familiar surroundings in old age. Senior housing complexes are to be created across the state so older people can remain in their home towns. Accessible conversions, such as elevators in older buildings, are to be subsidized. Housing where young and old live together is to be developed further. Neighborhoods should get easy-to-reach services, for example through support for nearby grocery stores.

The CDU wants to fight homelessness in Hesse and develop a support plan together with municipalities and social service providers. It also wants to examine whether the "Housing First" approach can help.

Some people have no home. The CDU wants to help them. Helpers should go to where these people are. The CDU will also look at the idea of "Housing First." This means people get a home first.

The plan is to include easy-access outreach help and tailored services, developed jointly with cities, towns and aid organizations. The "Housing First" approach, in which homeless people first receive their own home, is to be reviewed for its usefulness. The CDU also wants to discuss with municipalities whether accommodations built during the refugee crisis can be reused for this purpose.

The CDU wants to make it easier to convert old barns, stables and commercial buildings in village centers into housing or other uses. Mid-sized rural towns are also to benefit more from urban development funding, and bus and rail service is to be reliable there.

Many old barns and stables in villages stand empty. The CDU wants to make it easier to turn them into homes. Small towns in the countryside should get more money for urban development. Buses and trains should run reliably in the countryside too.

To ease conversions, the program wants to cut red tape and obstacles in heritage protection law and give municipalities more room to decide. The urban development funding programs are to continue in their current form and size, with the state fully matching the federal money. On mobility, the CDU commits to individual and climate-neutral transport in rural areas. Transport services are to be linked up, and new demand-based concepts are to be added in rural regions.