Grüne on housing

The Greens want a state-owned housing company that builds and rents out homes itself. It is to buy back large housing portfolios from private companies. A funding program would also enable municipalities to purchase housing.

The Greens want a housing company owned by the state. It should build and rent out homes. It should also buy many homes from private companies. Cities and towns should get money to buy homes.

The party describes this as housing policy oriented toward the common good, with the public sector acting as landlord and builder. The state company is to work closely with municipal housing companies and cooperatives. The platform argues that affordable housing lowers what the state and municipalities spend on housing costs and housing benefits and is a locational factor for the economy.

The Greens want to make the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) a permanent part of tenancy law and push for its expansion at the federal level. In the state it is to apply in more areas, and a rent monitor is to check compliance.

The rent brake limits rents in new leases. The Greens want it to apply for good. It should apply in more places. A computer program should check rental ads. This shows the town where rents are too high.

At the federal level, the party wants to close loopholes such as short-term leases, index-linked rents without a cap and surcharges for furnishings. The state is to identify tight housing markets precisely and define on that basis where the brake applies. The rent monitor is to come to all municipalities with an established housing shortage and automatically check public rental listings against the permitted level. A network would help cities and towns set it up. Landlords and tenants are to be better informed about rent indexes, rights and duties.

The Greens want to make the ban on misusing housing for other purposes more effective. Municipalities are to be able to inspect and sanction vacancies more easily so that empty or repurposed homes are lived in again.

Some homes stand empty or are used for other things. The Greens want to change that. Towns should be able to check empty homes better. They should also be able to give fines. The state helps list empty homes.

Municipalities are to be allowed to pass bylaws against misuse without preconditions, limited in area and time. The state would help them set up vacancy registers; a shared data base is meant to make it possible to approach owners and trigger renovations. Help is planned especially for places with tight markets and many vacancies, for example through advice, digital tools and new options for mixed residential and commercial neighborhoods. Land managers are to track down unused sites.

The Greens want to put more money into social housing support and simplify it. Instead of about 3,000, at least 5,000 new social housing units are to be created each year. Existing rent restrictions are to be preserved and future ones extended.

Social housing means homes with low rent. Today about 3,000 are created each year. The Greens want at least 5,000. The state gives more money for this. The homes should stay cheap for longer.

The state is to match federal funds one to one in the future. According to the platform, rent restrictions on about 7,000 units could expire over the next five years. Keeping restrictions on existing units is therefore to become more attractive, and the state wants to approach companies with large portfolios directly. Newly subsidized homes are to be rented at low prices for longer. As a matter of principle, the party aims for permanently rather than temporarily restricted housing.

The Greens want to make the "Junges Wohnen" (young living) program permanent and build significantly more dorm places. In university towns, 30 percent of students are to be offered a dorm place. For apprentices, the hurdles to renting are to come down.

Young people have a hard time finding a home. The Greens want to build more dorms. Almost one in three students should get a place there. Apprentices should get a lease more easily. Proof of their training will be enough.

"Junges Wohnen" funds housing for apprentices, students and people doing voluntary service. For apprentices, a minimum lease of three months is to suffice in the future, and proof of training will be enough to get a contract. Under the title "Dein erstes Zuhause" (your first home), an additional funding program for young people is to be developed based on their needs.

The Greens want to make communal, inclusive and accessible housing a core part of housing support. Developers and cooperatives oriented toward the common good are to receive state loan guarantees. Housing for company employees is also to get more support.

The Greens want to support new ways of living. For example shared homes for older people. Small building groups and cooperatives get a guarantee from the state. This means the state backs their loan. Companies also get help when they build homes for staff.

Homes with shared spaces, such as cluster apartments, are meant to make building cheaper. Neighborhoods are to be developed with common-good partners through concept-based land awards. The guarantees are meant to help smaller players create rent-restricted housing. The "Mitarbeiterwohnen" (employee housing) program is to grow and support companies that build or buy housing for their workforce, especially in rural areas.

The Greens want to introduce a Baden-Württemberg standard for affordable building and remodeling. All building requirements are to be checked for whether they are necessary. Municipalities should also be able to easily set the mandatory parking space requirement to zero.

Building has become expensive. The Greens want to review the building rules. Rules that are not needed should go. Hamburg serves as a model. Towns should be able to say: no one has to build parking here.

Models from other German states serve as examples, with the "Hamburg standard" named. Building, remodeling and converting existing buildings are to become possible with fewer hurdles and lower costs. The building code is to make remodeling easier and conserve resources, and digital permitting is to speed up planning. Municipalities are to be allowed to reduce the parking requirement to zero without much red tape.

The Greens want building standards geared more closely to actual need, leaner planning and faster permits. Model contracts are meant to protect private builders from liability for standards that go beyond what the law requires. The aim is more affordable housing.

The Greens want building to cost less. Building rules should be simpler. Permits should come faster. There should be ready-made contract templates. They protect people who build a home.

The program says savings of up to 2,000 euros gross per square meter are possible in new housing. Model contracts would also apply when the state itself builds or subsidizes housing. The Greens want to press the federal government to update the Federal Building Code, and municipalities would get help adapting their land-use plans. After office space, commercial space should also become quicker to convert, repurpose or use temporarily. Housing is to be usable without barriers.

The Greens want to advance resource-saving, circular construction: building components and materials should be easier to reuse. New funding programs and centers are meant to bring innovations into building practice faster and make construction cheaper.

The Greens want less building material to be thrown away. Old building parts should be used again. New buildings should be easy to convert. Companies with new ideas for building should get money.

Demolition is to be assessed on ecological, social and economic grounds, and life-cycle assessment is to become standard for state-owned projects. Regional and temporary secondary raw material centers would collect and process used building materials, and the Greens back the digital building resource passport. They plan a start-up center for sustainable construction and an innovation program called „Nachhaltig und flexibel Bauen“ for new materials, methods and housing concepts. A center for building culture would pool findings from the state's strategic dialogue and the 2027 International Building Exhibition; design advisory boards would continue to be funded.

The Greens want town centers and neighborhoods with short distances, green spaces and meeting places, adapted to heat and heavy rain. Public spaces should be open to everyone without pressure to spend money, and meeting places for children and young people should be preserved.

The Greens want good neighborhoods for everyone. There should be more green and more shade. This helps with heat and heavy rain. Public squares should be open to all. Children and young people should have places to meet.

Neighborhoods should have mixed uses, good public transit links, social infrastructure and energy management at the neighborhood level. The program rejects design measures meant to push homeless people out of public space. Municipalities would get support for heat action plans, shaded places to linger and drinking water. For soccer pitches, skate parks, community gardens and open play areas, municipalities would get more leeway for renovation, upgrading and new construction.

The Greens want more low-barrier housing and age-friendly neighborhoods so that people can stay in familiar surroundings as they grow old. A relocation bonus is meant to make it easier to move into a smaller home in the same neighborhood, freeing up space for families.

The Greens want more homes without barriers. Older people should be able to stay in their neighborhood. People who move to a smaller home should get a bonus. Then the big home is free for families.

The state strategy „Quartier 2030 – Gemeinsam.Gestalten“ would be continued and developed further, with the state advising, funding and training municipalities. The goals are barrier-free paths, local services, meeting places and easy access to medical and nursing care. The program names the World Health Organization's Age Friendly Cities as a model. Multigenerational houses are funded, and assisted shared-living arrangements would be strengthened financially and legally.

The Greens want to expand the state's land fund so that municipalities can secure plots for social, ecological and public purposes. The program cites church-owned land as an example, which in the party's view could otherwise end up with speculators when sold.

The state has a fund for land. It helps towns and cities buy plots. The Greens want to improve this fund. That way, land stays available for affordable homes and for the public.

The fund already helps municipalities buy land, with priority for ready-to-build, undeveloped plots inside settlements. In the future, the state would use it to back municipalities' active land policy even more effectively. The program also points to Grundsteuer C, a property tax that lets municipalities charge more for undeveloped, ready-to-build plots and thereby counter speculation.

The Greens want to keep funding the conversion of vacant buildings into homes and allow such changes of use without a permit procedure. This is meant to save land, revive town and village centers and create housing, especially in rural areas.

Some buildings in rural areas stand empty. The Greens want to turn them into homes. Funding for this will continue. Conversions should be possible without a long procedure.

The basis is the "Entwicklungsprogramm Ländlicher Raum" (ELR, rural development program), whose budget the platform says was tripled and geared toward sustainability, development within existing settlements, unsealing of surfaces and renovation of existing buildings. It has funded village shops, cultural centers and community halls, among other things. Nature parks, LEADER regions and biosphere reserves are also to keep receiving support. The goal is equivalent living conditions across the state.