Building law should not only be simplified for refugees – BZ Berlin
The federal states have decided to speed up the construction of refugee accommodation. But it should apply to all housing construction, which is failing in Berlin primarily because of bureaucracy, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The federal states want to simplify building law in order to be able to quickly create new living space for refugees.
The Federal Council passed a resolution on March 11. There it says: “Since it is currently not possible to estimate how many Ukrainian war refugees are seeking protection and help in the Federal Republic of Germany, the municipalities need comprehensive freedom of action in terms of building planning law to create facilities.”
Specifically, Section 246 Paragraph 14 of the German Building Code, which was in force from 2015 to 2020, is to come into force again. This paragraph allows to deviate from all provisions of the building code if this is necessary “to build urgently needed facilities for refugees”.
After this accelerated procedure, the Berlin Senate approved the so-called “modular accommodation for refugees” (MUF) at 53 locations in Berlin. These are residential buildings with a sample floor plan, which are built by the municipal housing association in prefabricated form and offer living space for up to 450 people per unit.
There was and still is considerable dispute about the location of this MUF, because the local residents were not asked. Apart from this undemocratic way, the accelerated construction is of course spot on, because if you take in refugees, you also have to accommodate them. The housing market is empty, and new construction is needed.
It is more difficult to ask why this exception to building law cannot also be used to create living space for the people who already live here and thus not to alleviate the need for housing.
Why do refugees always have to come first so that this city can create new living space boldly and quickly? Why not just do it like this?
The construction of the MUF has shown that less bureaucracy is possible and that many hurdles in building law are superfluous.
A MUF, for example, may also be in an industrial area or close to the motorway. Such locations are actually taboo because of the noise pollution. Why actually? Maybe one or the other would like to live where it’s a little louder before they don’t get an apartment at all!
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It really didn’t hurt anyone that the MUF were built faster than other apartment buildings. The accelerated procedure made it very clear to us that the construction law is far too complicated and the procedures take an unnecessarily long time.
In Berlin, fewer and fewer building permits have been issued over the past five years. In 2021, the number of permits in Berlin fell again by 8.5 percent compared to the previous year.
The Governing Mayoress wanted to break this trend and make building a “boss’s matter”. But she’s not making any progress. According to the motto: “If I ever get stuck, I’ll set up a working group”, she set up the “Alliance for Housing Construction and Affordable Housing” on January 28th.
Countless experts cross their foreheads there. You would have to do nothing more than eliminate the sprawling construction bureaucracy. This is possible, as we can see from the example of the MUF. You just have to want it.
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