FDP on housing

The FDP wants growth in land used for housing and transport to fall to zero by 2050. Before new residential or commercial zones are created, vacant lots, existing buildings and brownfield sites should be used.

Land cannot be multiplied. So the FDP wants to build on less new land. From 2050, no new land should be added on balance. Gaps and old buildings should be used first. Buildings should also be allowed to be taller.

Before new residential land is zoned, vacant lots should be filled and demand demonstrated; converting barns, stables and attics takes priority over new developments on the edge of town. Disused commercial and industrial sites should be reused before new commercial zones are created, and municipalities should offer commercial land jointly. The FDP promotes multi-story construction for homes and businesses and wants to push stacked uses of the same land. Heritage protection rules for houses and farmsteads in village centers would be relaxed. Funding programs and financial incentives for owners and municipalities are meant to support this, along with incentives to carry out compensation measures on the building site itself.

The FDP wants to boost housing construction with fewer rules and faster procedures. Binding deadlines would apply to building permits; if a deadline passes, the application counts as approved.

The FDP wants faster building. Offices should decide on building applications within fixed deadlines. If they miss them, the application counts as approved. Turning an attic into a home should no longer need a permit. Applications should be possible online.

Documents would be checked for completeness within one week, simplified procedures decided within one month and standard procedures within two months. A housing master plan would bundle the individual measures; adding stories and converting attics into homes would no longer need a permit, following Bavaria's example. Municipalities would get a uniform digital system for building applications, and construction planning overall would become more digital. The party rejects neighborhood preservation statutes, a blanket ban on vacation rentals, building code rules it considers excessive, and making builders share public transit development costs.

The FDP wants to abolish the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) and the 2022 ban on converting rental apartments into condominiums. The period during which tenants cannot be evicted after a conversion would drop from eight to five years. The party argues these rules hold back investment and home ownership.

The FDP wants to end the rent brake. This rule limits rents in new leases. The FDP says the rule prevents new housing. Rental apartments should again be allowed to become owned apartments. Protection from eviction after that should last five years, not eight.

According to the platform, private individuals provide about two thirds of rental apartments, and their returns are currently uncertain. If they withdraw, supply shrinks. The conversion ban is said to limit home ownership because four out of five buyers purchase existing homes. The extended eviction protection period applies in the 49 Hessian municipalities with the rent brake and would be cut back to five years.

The FDP wants a one-time allowance of up to 500,000 euros on the property transfer tax when someone buys their first owner-occupied home. State programs that support home ownership would also be redesigned so more people can buy.

People who buy a house pay a tax. The FDP wants to cut this tax for the first home of your own. Up to 500,000 euros would be tax-free. This only applies if you live there yourself. State support programs should also get better.

The allowance would apply to private individuals and is meant as a first step. The platform sees home ownership as retirement provision because no rent is due in old age. It says Hesse's existing support programs were barely used because of unrealistic requirements. The programs of the WI-Bank (the state development bank) would be digitized and redesigned; in rural areas the platform considers ownership support the most important tool.

The FDP wants to scrap Grundsteuer C, a property tax on land ready for building, before it can first be levied in 2025. The levy on social housing tenants whose income has risen would also go, and the property tax as a whole would be reviewed in 2027.

From 2025, towns may charge an extra tax on empty building land. The FDP wants to end this tax before then. A charge in social housing should also go. Tenants pay it when they now earn a bit more. The FDP thinks this charge is unfair.

Hesse's property tax law gave municipalities the option of levying Grundsteuer C. The structure of the property tax would be fundamentally examined as part of the planned evaluation two years after its first application. According to the platform, the misallocation levy hits low earners who are only slightly above the income limits. It also says the levy creates a heavy administrative burden for municipalities and that Hesse is alone in charging it.

The FDP wants to review the state's building land initiative and make it more effective, because it sees a lack of building land as one cause of housing shortages and rising rents. The municipal fiscal equalization system should reward municipalities that designate land for housing.

The FDP says there is too little building land. That makes housing scarce and expensive. The state should help towns more to create building land. Towns should get more money when they release land for housing. Gaps between buildings should also be filled.

The building land initiative would be evaluated and made more efficient. Obstacles to designating land would be removed, with denser building in suitable places and vacant lots filled. Municipal fiscal equalization would be changed so that designating housing land pays off financially. The post of state housing construction commissioner would be filled again. The FDP also backs an International Building Exhibition to develop Frankfurt-Rhine-Main into a “smart region.”

The FDP wants to reform heritage protection in Hesse to make modernization of listed buildings easier. Requirements should be kept as low as possible so their cost does not hold back new housing.

Some old buildings are protected as monuments. Changing them is hard and costly. The FDP wants to relax the rules. That should create more homes there. For decaying buildings, protection should be easier to end.

The reform aims to make modernization work in listed buildings easier. The state office for heritage preservation would undergo a fundamental reform of its structure and statutes. For dilapidated buildings that have seen no investment for a long time, protected status should be easier to lift.

The FDP wants planning and approval of construction projects to be handled entirely digitally so that bureaucracy does not slow housing construction. In publicly funded building projects, fiber optics and cell towers would become mandatory where suitable.

The FDP wants building applications to be digital. Instead of paper plans, people hand in digital models of the building. This should help homes get built faster. Buildings paid for with public money should get fast internet built in.

The basis is Building Information Modelling (BIM), meaning digital building models, supplemented by a digital building file and a digitized land register. Small and medium-sized firms would get the necessary know-how through the regional innovation and startup centers. Installing fiber optics and cell towers would be required in subsidized construction and renovation projects where suitable, practical and compatible with heritage protection. A campaign with network operators would encourage tenants and owners to get connected during road construction work.