In 2014, the Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment launched the Forum Wohnen. Around 25 representatives from the housing industry, borough administrations and the state parliament were to meet four times a year to discuss the most pressing questions around Berlin's housing market.
The reason was straightforward: Berlin was growing, and the market could not keep up.
90,000 apartments according to the WoFIS system
The main topic of the first session was the available land potential. The Senate Department presented results from the new housing land information system (WoFIS). The data showed that on larger sites alone, suitable for projects of 50 or more units, more than 90,000 new apartments could be built by 2020.
State Secretary Engelbert Luetke Daldrup described the construction activity at the time as an initial success of the measures already taken. Housing market participants confirmed that enough land was available in the short to medium term to meet the targets set out in the Urban Development Plan for Housing 2025.
Focus on affordable housing
However, the Senate Department stressed that long-term land reserves had to be secured even then. State Secretary Luetke Daldrup put it this way: "The supply of apartments in Berlin in the mid-range and lower price segments must be increased, both through new construction and existing stock development." Instruments such as the cooperative building land model and housing construction subsidies were to provide the basis.
Demand for affordable housing was particularly high in central locations such as Mitte or Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. The market development showed that rising rents were putting households with lower incomes under particular strain.
What this meant for investors
The founding of the Forum Wohnen sent a signal to the market: the Senate intended to actively promote residential construction. For investors and project developers, this meant political backing for building projects on the one hand. On the other, it was becoming clear that affordable housing requirements and the cooperative building land model would influence the calculations for new developments.
Further measures to accelerate housing construction were to be discussed and implemented in the following year.
