CDU on housing

The CDU wants to keep rents affordable by making construction easier and by funding social housing. According to the platform, affordable housing is part of a good life.

The CDU wants rents to stay affordable. To do this, building should become easier. The CDU also wants to support social housing. These are low-cost homes for people with little money.

The platform names two paths to affordable rents. First, relief measures are meant to make construction simpler. Second, the building of social housing is to receive public funding. The CDU places both alongside the goal of making home ownership affordable.

The CDU wants to keep funding student housing with state money and create additional dorm places. In addition, applications for BAföG (student financial aid) are to be processed faster.

The CDU wants more dorm places for students. The state should pay part of this. Providers other than the Studentenwerk should also build. Applications for student aid should be handled faster.

Besides the Studentenwerk (student services organization), further providers are to be won over to build dorms. The CDU wants to reach agreements with municipalities on suitable land. To process BAföG applications faster, suitable structures are to be set up together with the Studentenwerk.

To counter high rents, the CDU relies on more housing construction and rejects the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) and a rent cap, which it calls blunt and symbolic politics. Instead, reliable and flexible conditions for investment are to apply. The state's housing offensive is to continue.

The CDU wants more homes to be built. It says many homes are the best protection for renters. It rejects a rent brake. That is a rule that limits rents.

According to the platform, Schleswig-Holstein has already ended the rent brake, and this is to remain so. It says more than one billion euros were made available for housing in the past legislative term. Affordable housing, climate-efficient buildings and sparing land use are to be combined. The platform adopts the motto "build, build, build" and wants to enable both home ownership and affordable rentals.

The CDU wants to strengthen social housing support for people with low incomes, subsidize new construction and extend rent and occupancy restrictions on existing units. Wohngeld (housing benefit) is to rise. It wants to tackle social housing occupied by households that no longer qualify through pilot projects, without tenants having to move out.

The CDU wants more low-cost homes for people with little money. The state gives grants for this. The housing benefit should go up. People who now earn more may stay in their social housing. Another home should then become social housing instead.

In the pilot projects, the tenant protection tied to the subsidy is to move from a unit whose residents now earn more to a new social housing unit for eligible households. The housing program for homeless people, women from shelters and households at risk of poverty, for which 20 million euros have been provided so far, is to continue. Cooperatives are to get land more cheaply, for example through ground leases combined with concept-based allocation. The CDU rejects a new nonprofit housing status, citing the scandals around the Neue Heimat housing company.

Because building land is becoming scarce, the CDU wants to make better use of existing sites: renovate vacant units, convert commercial and barracks sites, and fill gaps between buildings. To this end it plans a digital register of vacant lots and a building land fund with a loan volume of 100 million euros for municipalities.

Land for building is running short. So the CDU wants to use empty buildings and free plots in towns. A digital list should show these plots. Towns get money to make homes possible there.

Vacant commercial space, old industrial sites and barracks in city centers are to become housing; a network of land managers is to help. Municipalities are to be able to promote infill, such as building in a second row, in back courtyards and in gaps; modular buildings and tiny houses will be examined. With the housing industry, the CDU wants to develop concepts so older people can move into senior-friendly apartments without paying more rent. It rules out square-meter limits for apartments and houses. Urban development and housing funds are to be used more to revive village and town centers.

Because raw materials are scarce, the CDU wants to rely more on sustainable, reusable building materials and launch a timber construction offensive. Buildings are to switch from fossil to renewable energy sources without overburdening low-income households.

Building materials are scarce. So the CDU wants to build more with wood. Recycled building materials should also be used more often. Homes should run on renewable energy. People with little money should not pay too much for this.

Recycled building materials are to be used more often, including in public construction; their production and installation are to be made easier and start-ups in this field supported. Gravel extraction in the state is to be regulated through regional planning in line with demand and environmental concerns, with regional sourcing given priority. According to the platform, affordable housing and climate efficiency should not be mutually exclusive. It names the switch to renewable sources for primary energy as the key.

The CDU rejects binding regulations as a way to enforce climate action in housing. Instead, it wants to reach agreements with the housing industry and look at whole neighborhoods rather than individual buildings.

The CDU does not want to force climate action in housing. It wants to make deals with housing companies. The whole neighborhood should count, not each single building.

Climate action is to be achieved through voluntarily negotiated agreements with the housing industry. The neighborhood-level view is to take priority over assessing individual buildings. For single buildings, the CDU wants to create more options for bundling energy-saving measures in renovation roadmaps, for example via the energy performance certificate. It also wants to support building with recycled materials and make it easier to produce and install them.

The CDU wants to help municipalities set up digital building authorities everywhere. The explosive ordnance clearance service is to be strengthened and process requests within three months at most.

The CDU wants building offices everywhere to work digitally. The state should help towns do this. The service that looks for old bombs should get faster. It should take three months at most.

The state is to support municipalities in rolling out digital building authorities across the board. At the explosive ordnance clearance service, digital tools, especially with support from artificial intelligence, are meant to shorten procedures. Processing time there is to be capped at three months.

The CDU wants to support new routes to owning a home, such as rent-to-own or cooperative solutions. The Investitionsbank Schleswig-Holstein (the state's development bank) is to make purchases possible even with little equity through its loan programs.

The CDU wants to support new ways to own a home. One example is rent-to-own. You pay rent first and own the home later. The state's bank should help with loans.

The platform names rent-to-own and cooperative models aimed at acquiring one's own home. The Investitionsbank Schleswig-Holstein is to help when buyers lack equity for financing. To that end, the CDU wants to review the bank's funding offers. It wants to curb rising purchase prices mainly by having as much new housing built as possible.

The CDU wants to rethink urban planning and reduce land consumption. It proposes funding programs for building plots allocated in small parcels and for new, land-saving forms of construction.

The CDU wants building to use less land. There will be funding for this. Towns should hand out small building plots. Old sites should be used again.

The platform mentions a funding program that lets municipalities allocate building land in small parcels. Land recycling and land saving are to become a standard part of planning projects. A further funding program is meant to support innovative building types that need little land.

The CDU wants to enable older people to live independently in the surroundings they choose. To do so, funding for housing suited to seniors is to be expanded, and on-demand bus services are to be supported statewide and developed further. The needs of older people are also to count for more in transport and infrastructure.

Older people should decide for themselves where they live. The CDU wants to give more money for suitable housing. Buses that come on request should get better across the state. Streets and paths should suit older people better.

The CDU wants to draw up recommendations on "housing for old age" and support age-appropriate forms of housing and neighborhoods with suitable infrastructure, both financially and in principle. The platform calls meeting places indispensable, especially in rural areas. Services such as Anruf-Linien-Fahrten (ALFA, taxis on bus routes at bus fare) and citizen-run buses are to be developed into a more flexible on-demand bus system that also works across county lines. Public road space is to be designed in consultation with seniors' associations, accompanied by a statewide awareness campaign. Support networks with care and social service institutions are to be backed.