CDU on housing

The CDU wants to make it easier for families to own a home through a state Baukindergeld (home-buying grant per child). For each minor child in the household, families are to receive 12,000 euros toward buying or building a property.

The CDU wants to help families buy or build a home. There should be a grant for this. Families get 12,000 euros for each child under 18. The money is for buying or building a house or an apartment.

The child must be registered in the household and still be a minor when the application is filed. The program describes Lower Saxony as a state of owner-occupied homes, where 58 percent of dwellings are in one- or two-family houses. The CDU's stated goal is to help young families in particular get a home of their own.

The CDU wants to stop charging Grunderwerbsteuer (property transfer tax) on the purchase of a first owner-occupied home. It calls on the federal government to make mortgage interest for home ownership tax-deductible for ten years.

People who buy a house pay a tax on the purchase. The CDU wants to drop this tax for the first home of your own. Interest on the home loan should also lower taxes. This should apply for ten years.

The program justifies the interest deduction by noting that it is already possible for commercial financing. New paths to ownership such as rent-to-own or cooperative models are to be included in the state's support. Under the "Einfach Bauen" (simple building) program, the CDU wants to fund pilot projects with housing companies that show how to build affordably with sustainable materials such as local timber.

The CDU wants to tackle high rents and purchase prices through more new construction and rejects a rent cap. There is to be no state-owned housing company; instead, it plans a construction drive with cooperatives, municipalities and private investors.

The CDU wants more homes to be built. It believes prices will then fall. It rejects a rent cap. The state should not set up its own housing company. The state's development bank should give loans for building.

In the CDU's view, a sufficient supply of housing is the best protection for tenants. It rejects a state company because, as it sees it, additional administrative structures do not produce homes. Partners in the construction drive are to be local building cooperatives, municipal housing companies, municipalities and private developers. The NBank is to be funded so that it can offer a large loan program for housing construction.

The CDU wants to support municipal housing companies and cooperatives and to heavily subsidize construction, including by private investors, through the state's NBank development bank. Housing companies should get cheaper access to land, and tax depreciation for housing investment should improve.

The CDU wants more homes to be built. The state's development bank should give more money for this. Cities, cooperatives and private firms should all get support. Builders should get cheaper land more easily.

Existing municipal companies and cooperatives would be supported and new ones helped to get started. Land would be made available cheaply, for example through combinations of ground leases and concept-based tenders, so that municipalities keep a say over how plots are used. Buying shares in housing cooperatives would be subsidized. The CDU also wants to push for better tax depreciation, allow run-down apartment blocks to be demolished using housing subsidies, and work with the federal government on incentives to bring unused private living space onto the market. Accessible housing would be promoted, and converting farm buildings into homes would be made easier.

The CDU wants to implement the federal Baulandmobilisierungsgesetz (building land mobilization act) and help municipalities activate and stockpile land for construction. Suitable state-owned plots would be sold to municipalities at a discount, and rules on compensating for land use would be changed to free up more building land.

Many towns do not have enough land for building. The CDU wants to help them. The state should sell its own plots to towns for less money. Rules on making up for built-on land should also change.

The program justifies the plan by pointing to scarce building land in many municipalities. Land banking, meaning buying plots in advance, would be subsidized and municipal rights of first refusal strengthened. State-owned properties suitable for building would be handed over at reduced prices for land development. The requirements for land-use compensation would also be relaxed.

The CDU wants to introduce a state-level conversion law that makes it easier to remodel buildings in city and town centers and to fill vacant lots. It also wants to act against vacancies and misuse of housing, and to simplify and subsidize adding stories and converting attics.

The CDU wants new rules for remodeling old buildings. Remodeling in town centers should get easier. Empty apartments should be usable again faster. People who add a floor or convert an attic should get money.

For remodeling in town centers and building on vacant lots, more exemptions would apply, for example from heritage protection rules and parking space requirements. Unoccupied apartments would be modernized more quickly. The program sees disused commercial and industrial sites and former barracks as an opportunity for new housing that also livens up downtown areas in the evening. Adding stories and converting top-floor attics would become legally simpler and receive financial support.

The CDU wants to create more affordable and rent-controlled social housing and to subsidize it. It argues that many subsidized apartments are still losing their rent restrictions and have rarely been replaced. It rejects a return to the nonprofit housing status (Wohnungsgemeinnützigkeit).

The CDU wants more low-cost homes. Many social apartments are losing their price limits. So the state should give better support for new social housing. The CDU does not want nonprofit housing status back. That is an old model with tax breaks for landlords who limit rents.

The expansion would be carried out together with cooperatives, municipal companies and private investors. Municipalities would be supported in setting a quota for social housing; in the program's view, mixed neighborhoods contribute to social stability. Funding terms would be improved, especially regarding grants and repayment conditions. The CDU describes nonprofit housing status as a model that has already failed.

The CDU wants to roll out digital building offices statewide so that building applications and permits are handled electronically. In addition, standardized documents, standards and procedures are meant to shorten approval processes.

The CDU wants building offices to work digitally. People should apply for building permits online. They should also see how far their application is. This should make permits faster.

The model is the district of Osnabrück: applications, permits and access to processing status would all be available digitally. Municipalities would be supported in setting up a digital register of vacant lots, and the digital planning method Building Information Modeling (BIM) would become standard. Also planned are uniform application documents, uniform standards for fire safety reviews and mandatory application conferences for large projects. Reviewing planners such as structural inspectors would be involved early on.