SPD on housing

The SPD wants to improve regional housing planning and coordinate bindingly with Hamburg. This is meant to allow more affordable apartments and houses in the Schleswig-Holstein municipalities around Hamburg.

There are too few cheap homes around Hamburg. The SPD wants to plan housing there better. It wants firm agreements with Hamburg. This should lead to more affordable apartments and houses.

The platform describes the lack of affordable housing around Hamburg as a pressing task with far-reaching social consequences. Coordination with Hamburg is to be close and binding. It is meant to improve the potential for affordable housing in the municipalities on the Schleswig-Holstein side.

The SPD wants to give municipalities more power to intervene in the housing market. This includes building orders that are easier to enforce, a law against the neglect of housing, and social housing quotas for infill development as well.

The SPD wants towns to do more against the housing shortage. Towns should be able to order owners to build more easily. They should also be able to act when homes fall into decay. New buildings should include more social housing.

Municipalities are urged to make active use of Grundsteuer C, a property tax that allows higher rates on undeveloped building land. Following Hamburg's example, a housing supervision and protection law would allow intervention when housing deteriorates. Minimum shares of subsidized housing are to become possible for larger infill projects in built-up areas without a development plan. To that end, the SPD wants to allow so-called sectoral development plans.

The SPD wants a state strategy for developing downtowns, town centers and Soziale Stadt (socially integrative city) areas. Centers are meant to be meeting places with leisure, culture, sports and work spaces, not just places to live and shop.

The SPD wants to bring life back to town centers. The state should make a plan for this. Centers should offer more than shops. People should be able to meet, learn and play sports there.

The strategy is meant to advise municipalities on urban redevelopment and support public participation. Retailers and restaurants are to get help in negotiations with landlords, because the platform says high rents, vacancies and speculation make centers unattractive. The goal is a rental partnership among businesses, tenants and landlords. Existing city marketing initiatives are to be strengthened and better connected.

The SPD wants to give the Studentenwerk Schleswig-Holstein (student services organization) more staff and money. The share of publicly subsidized student housing is to reach the national average in the medium term. BAföG (federal student aid) applications are to be processed faster.

The Studentenwerk helps students. The SPD wants to give it more money and more staff. There should be more cheap housing for students. BAföG applications should be done faster. BAföG is money from the government for studying.

The platform describes the supply of subsidized student housing in the state as far worse than the national average. The psychosocial counseling offered by the Studentenwerk is to keep growing. Similar services are to be created for trainees.

The SPD wants to enshrine a right to affordable housing in the state constitution. Much more is to be built in sought-after locations, and nonprofit-oriented housing cooperatives are to be strengthened. The platform calls housing a basic right and affordable housing a central social issue.

The SPD says: housing is a basic right. Everyone needs a home they can pay for. This right should be in the state constitution. More homes should also be built.

In the SPD's view, only enough apartments and houses will keep prices affordable in the medium term. The platform sees municipal housing companies and cooperatives as important partners; the founding of new cooperatives is to be supported. Besides affordable rents, home ownership is also to be within reach for people with ordinary incomes.

The SPD wants to reinstate the Mietpreisbremse (rent brake) that the state government abolished and make it permanent. The cap on rent increases is to be lowered in tight housing markets. This is meant to limit rising rents until enough new homes are finished.

Rents are rising fast in some places. The state government got rid of the rent brake. The SPD wants to bring it back. Rents would then be allowed to rise more slowly. This should help until there are more homes.

According to the platform, the state government scrapped the rent brake and the cap that had been lowered from 20 to 15 percent. The SPD wants to make full use again of the room federal law gives for a lower cap. The state is to support cities and towns with money and expertise in drawing up qualified rent indexes. Municipalities that cooperate on this are to receive special support.

The SPD wants to launch a state development strategy through 2050 to steer the housing market over the long term. It includes regular forecasts, regional planning, cooperation between cities and surrounding towns, and a coordination office for home swaps.

The SPD wants a long-term plan for housing. The plan should run until 2050. Cities and nearby towns should work together more. People should be able to swap homes more easily. The state should set up an office for this.

The strategy covers regular updates of housing market forecasts and steering residential construction through regional planning that balances growth and shrinkage. The state would initiate, moderate and fund cooperation between larger and mid-sized centers and their surrounding municipalities. In rural areas, rental housing and new forms of owner-occupied apartments in denser building types are to be made possible to counter the hollowing out of town centers. The plan also includes a state coordination office for home swaps and money for municipal swap agencies.

The SPD wants to protect and maintain the existing housing stock more strongly. A state ordinance would restrict the conversion of rental apartments into condominiums in tight housing markets, alongside preservation statutes in neighborhoods facing displacement pressure.

The SPD wants to protect renters better. Rental homes should not easily become homes for sale. This should apply where housing is scarce. Repairs to old homes should also go faster.

Alongside new construction, preserving and maintaining existing homes is to get more attention, and renovations should be possible more quickly. In neighborhoods where the platform sees a threat of gentrification and displacement of long-time tenants, the SPD considers preservation statutes important. The conversion stop under Section 250 of the Federal Building Code, which makes splitting rental buildings into condominiums subject to approval, would be applied in Schleswig-Holstein through a state ordinance. Municipalities are expected to plan so that all income groups and vulnerable groups can find housing.

The SPD wants the state to become an active player in the housing market again and plans to found a state development company for this purpose. Together with municipalities and cooperatives, 100,000 new housing units are to be built within ten years, backed by a push to develop building land.

The SPD wants the state to start its own housing company. This company should help towns. It should also build homes itself if no one else does. In ten years, 100,000 new homes should be built. Building offices should work digitally and faster.

The company would step in where municipal structures are missing or insufficient, mobilize land, advance planning and help municipalities set up their own housing companies. It would also create and manage housing itself, for example for homeless people, large low-income families or women fleeing violence; pilot projects such as "Housing First" are to be examined. A building-land initiative, an expanded land fund and new districts modeled on a 21st-century garden city are meant to provide land. Modular construction and digitized building authorities are intended to cut costs and speed up permits.

The SPD wants to reshape city centers and turn unused office space and empty storefronts into apartments. This is meant to create additional housing while bringing life back to downtown areas.

Many cities have empty offices and shops. The SPD wants to turn them into homes. That creates more housing. It also brings more life to city centers.

The platform calls this approach redevelopment. As a reason, it says that because of working from home, mobile work and changed shopping habits, not all vacant commercial space will be rented out again. Part of this space is therefore to be reused as housing.

The SPD wants to raise the stock of publicly subsidized housing to 120,000 units over the long term. To get there, at least 4,000 apartments with occupancy restrictions are to be created each year through new construction and renovation, with more budget funds made available.

The SPD wants more social housing. These are low-cost homes supported by the state. At least 4,000 should be added each year. In the end there should be 120,000. The state should spend more money on this.

The new apartments are meant to make up for expiring occupancy restrictions, meaning rules that reserve apartments for eligible tenants. The dedicated housing construction fund is to be preserved and topped up with federal compensation payments. The plan calls for higher budget funds, more attractive subsidy rates and the extension of existing restrictions in coordination with the state investment bank, the housing industry and municipalities. Enough subsidized apartments are to be accessible and go to disadvantaged groups; in cities, a substantial share of housing is to be municipally or cooperatively owned in the long run.

The SPD wants to give municipalities with tight housing markets a broad right of first refusal that lets them buy properties at a capped price. A state ordinance would also allow them to use the tools of the federal Baulandmobilisierungsgesetz (Building Land Mobilization Act).

Towns should be able to buy land and buildings more easily. They should get the first chance to buy when something is sold. The price should be capped. This should lead to more affordable homes. The federal government and the railway should also offer towns more cheap land.

The capped purchase price could be based on the rent that can be charged in a socially acceptable way. A state ordinance would enable expanded pre-emption rights by local statute, quick updates of outdated land-use plans and easier use of building orders for undeveloped lots. Municipalities are to be able to bank land again, and loans for buying and developing land are not to be cut. The federal real estate agency, Deutsche Bahn and the state's building management agency are to release surplus land faster and cheaply; when municipalities sell housing, public-interest criteria are to count as well.

The SPD wants to make it easier for young families to buy a home and will examine public support for rent-to-own models. Municipalities are also to be able to designate building land for young people's housing where simpler building standards apply.

Many young families do not have enough money for their own home. The SPD wants to check whether the state can help with rent-to-own. With rent-to-own, you pay rent and buy the home step by step. Small, cheap homes should be built quickly for young people. Simpler building rules should apply there.

The platform names a lack of savings for a down payment as the main problem and sees home ownership as a way to build wealth and provide for old age. Besides rent-to-own, the "Jung kauft alt" (young buys old) program is to keep receiving support. On land for young people's housing, more flexible rules on soundproofing, balconies, roof terraces and elevators are meant to make construction faster and cheaper. Small units are planned that can later be merged with little effort; the SPD also wants a pilot project for tiny-house settlements.

The SPD wants to create a housing oversight and housing protection law. It would let municipalities act against deteriorating housing and have serious defects in rental apartments fixed, with owners bearing the cost.

Some landlords let homes fall apart. The SPD wants a new law against that. Towns should then be able to have bad defects repaired. The owners have to pay for it.

The platform points out that other German states already have such laws. Municipalities would be able to combat decay and neglect of housing. They would be allowed to remedy unacceptable defects and charge the costs to the owners.