Grüne on housing

The Greens want to give stronger support to energy-efficiency renovations through construction guidance and subsidies. People receiving Wohngeld (housing benefit) are to get a climate bonus. Municipal heat planning is meant to provide more certainty when choosing climate-friendly heating systems.

Many poor people live in badly insulated homes. The Greens want to help more with renovations. There should be advice and money for this. People who get housing benefit should get a climate bonus. The cities should plan how homes will be heated in the future.

The program justifies the plan by noting that people with little money often live in poorly renovated homes. Those who want to renovate are to receive guidance during construction and financial support. A climate bonus is planned for housing benefit recipients. Municipal heat planning is meant to identify heating solutions for individual households and is listed among the chapter's key projects.

The Greens want to secure and create affordable housing, especially for people on low incomes, young families and single parents. The share of subsidized housing is to rise beyond the current 30 percent in new construction projects. In the party's view, housing should not be left to the market alone.

The Greens want more affordable homes. They are mainly for people with little money. Young families and single parents should get them too. There should be more social housing. These are homes the state supports so that rent stays low.

The program points out that the share of social housing in new construction projects has already been raised to 30 percent. Building subsidized homes is to become simpler and faster, and their share is to grow further and be preserved for the long term. The state housing subsidy program is said to have laid the groundwork for 10,000 new homes, a course the Greens want to continue. A qualified rent index was also adopted so that housing benefit and accommodation costs better reflect actual rents. Affordable housing is to be created without sealing natural land.

The Greens want to continue the state programs for disadvantaged neighborhoods and extend them to additional areas. Funding for climate protection projects in neighborhoods is also to continue beyond the current period. Programs for older people in their neighborhoods are meant to help avoid moves into care homes.

Bremen supports neighborhoods that are worse off. The Greens want to keep this support going. More areas should get money. Climate projects in neighborhoods should also keep getting money. Older people should be able to stay in their homes for a long time.

The programs "Wohnen in Nachbarschaften" and "Lebendige Quartiere" aim to improve housing and quality of life in previously disadvantaged districts, and the Greens consider them a success. The effects of newly funded very small and special neighborhoods and of "Quartiere im Werden" (emerging neighborhoods) are to be examined closely to derive further stabilizing steps. The funding program for nonprofit everyday climate protection projects in neighborhoods is to be extended. The programs "Pflege im Quartier" and "Ältere Menschen im Quartier" are meant to keep homes and neighborhoods attractive in old age.

The Greens want to add staff to the Wohngeld (housing benefit) office and restructure it so that applications are processed faster. The background is the housing benefit reform, which makes considerably more people eligible. The benefit is also to be better publicized, and applying is to become simpler and possible online.

Housing benefit is money from the state to help pay rent. The Greens want more staff in the housing benefit office. Then people get their money faster. Many people do not know they can get this money. So there should be more information. Applying should be easier and possible online.

According to the program, the housing benefit reform multiplies the number of eligible people. As a first step, the structure of the housing benefit office is to be changed so that processing becomes noticeably faster, with additional staff. Because many eligible people do not apply, the Greens want to promote the benefit more actively. At the federal level, the party wants to push for easier and digital applications, including advance payments.

The Greens want homelessness in Bremen to end by 2030. Instead of basic hotels or shared shelters, everyone is to live in a home of their own. To achieve this, the "Housing First" pilot project is to become a permanent service.

The Greens want this: by 2030, no one in Bremen should be without a home. Every person should get a home of their own. The home comes first, then more help follows. This approach is called Housing First.

Under Housing First, a home is arranged first, without requiring people to take part in support programs beforehand. The party wants to start by acquiring occupancy rights for up to 150 apartments and to build low-threshold advice and support on that basis. Housing with accompanying support is also planned for people addicted to drugs. Separate services and concepts are planned for homeless women because, according to the platform, they are more affected by hidden homelessness, stigma and violence. Free public toilets and washing facilities are to be set up. The party rejects design of public space that is aimed against homeless people.

The Greens want a binding quota of 30 percent social housing in larger new construction projects. By the end of 2023, Bremen is to have 8,000 social housing units. Building groups and housing cooperatives are to receive more support.

The Greens want more social housing. In large new buildings, 30 percent should be social housing. There should be 8,000 such homes by the end of 2023. Groups that build together should get more help.

The quota is to apply to new developments with more than 20 housing units. Building groups are to get more help finding sites and be given greater weight through planning and building law; the party sees a higher share of such groups as contributing to a stable housing market. The platform points to the coordination office set up in 2013 and the funding program for cooperative housing launched in 2021. The Stadtentwicklungsplan Wohnen 2030 (urban development plan for housing) is to lay the groundwork for new housing and help stabilize rent levels.

The Greens want to create an urban development company that secures land for affordable housing and inner-city commercial space. The city is to own more land and buildings and, as a rule, hand out its own plots only under Erbbaurecht (long-term ground leases).

The Greens want a city-owned company for urban development. It should secure land for affordable homes. The city should buy more land. It should no longer sell its own land but only lease it for a long time.

This is meant to give the municipality more influence over how the land is developed. An active land policy includes pre-emption rights and buying plots at strategically important locations in order to shape the city in the public interest. Under a ground lease, the plot remains city property while others may use and build on it for the long term. An integrated development concept is to be drawn up and implemented for Bremen-Nord.

The Greens want to further develop the Bremer Standard for climate-friendly new buildings and launch a state program for climate-friendly construction. Because building uses a lot of energy and seals land, conversion, renovation and recycling of building materials are to complement new construction.

The Greens want building to harm the climate less. New houses should meet high energy rules. There should be less concrete and steel. Converting buildings should come before building new ones.

According to the platform, the Bremer Standard requires plus-energy houses, renewable energy, greenery, economical land use and climate adaptation measures. The party follows the idea of dual inner development: no new sealing of land on the outskirts, unsealing, and denser building within the city. Building over parking lots, adding stories to houses and filling vacant lots are to be examined. Housing, work, culture and leisure are to be mixed, and when brownfield sites are converted, a share of commercial space is to be preserved.

The Greens want a funding program to make it easier to split large apartments and convert single-family houses into multi-unit buildings. The Wohnraumschutzgesetz (housing protection law) is to be changed so that vacant homes are quickly put back into use.

The Greens want new homes in existing buildings. It should be easier to split large apartments. There should be funding for this. Empty homes should be lived in again quickly.

The funding program is meant to create housing without new construction. The change to the housing protection law aims to ensure that vacant homes are actually and swiftly occupied again. The party also wants more meeting places in neighborhoods, with seating, accessibility, public toilets and drinking water fountains. The Überseestadt district is to get a new tram line, and outdoor dining areas set up on parking spaces during the pandemic are to stay.

The Greens want city-owned housing companies to halt, for now, rent increases, energy cutoffs, terminations and evictions over unpaid bills. At the federal level they want the states to be allowed to introduce a rent moratorium.

The Greens want to protect tenants during the energy crisis. City-owned housing companies should not raise rents for now. They should not end leases over unpaid bills. The federal government should also let the states freeze rents.

The suspension would apply at least until the end of 2023. The program argues that rising rents were a problem in Bremen even before the energy crisis and that the crisis is expected to continue to matter in 2023. A rent moratorium, meaning a temporary halt to rent increases, is not something the states can currently decide themselves; the federal government would have to create that option.

The Greens want a state program to give Baugemeinschaften (groups of private households building together) a place in future neighborhood developments, including in Bremerhaven. Funding for nonprofit-oriented building groups and housing cooperatives would grow, and both would get land more cheaply.

The Greens want to support building groups. These are groups of people who build a house together. Housing cooperatives should also get more help. Both should get land at a fixed, low price.

In the program's view, building groups strengthen cohesion and attachment to the neighborhood. Their participation in medium-sized and larger neighborhood projects would be secured through urban development contracts. Funding options for nonprofit-oriented building groups and the existing cooperative funding would be expanded. For both, a flat, fixed land value clearly below market value would be applied.

The Greens want to counter the trend toward more living space per person and make better use of existing housing. Funding, advice and a swap exchange would make it easier to move into smaller homes; the program justifies this with Bremen's climate targets.

Many people live in more and more space. The Greens want to change that. People who move to a smaller home should get money and advice. A swap exchange should help people trade homes. This should also help the climate.

Planned are a funding program for conversions and moves, a home swap exchange, legal support for swaps, and more flexible forms of housing and floor plans. Support should not consist of money alone but be tied to advice. Bremen would also press the federal government for matching advisory services and funding pots. The KfW program for dividing homes should become better known in Bremen.

The Greens want to add a trustee rule to Bremen's Housing Protection Act. Properties that stand empty for a long time could be handed to a trustee who renovates and rents them out and later returns them to the owners.

Some houses stand empty for a long time. The Greens want to change that. A trustee should be able to take over such houses. A trustee manages a house for its owners. The trustee repairs it and rents it out. Then the owners get the house back.

The program cites rules in other German states as a model. The handover to the trustee should happen quickly and, as the program describes it, leave ownership untouched and cost the municipalities little. Communities of heirs that are unable to act are given as an example. The trustee returns the renovated and rented building once the renovation costs have been paid off.