A top man in the green-red town hall coalition could soon switch to a top position in the housing industry. Christian Müller, one of the two chairmen of the SPD/Volt parliamentary group, confirms that he is interested in a position as managing director of the municipal housing association. A position will be advertised “soon” in the area of housing management and social services. “It’s definitely the case that I’m interested in it,” said Müller on Friday when asked. But there will be an application process.
His co-chairwoman Anne Hübner said that her parliamentary group was committed to “that after the fundamental decision to merge the housing associations, management positions that had not yet been filled should be advertised”. Müller’s application for the post is “expressly supported because, as a long-standing planning spokesman, he not only has the necessary knowledge of residential construction in Munich, but has also been in charge of a large service unit of a welfare association for years and has the corresponding management experience”. She was “absolutely convinced” that Müller was the right person for the post.
Although this is yet to be advertised, it sounds as if it is already almost taken. It is apparently still unclear whether the tender should refer to the smaller of the two municipal housing associations, the GWG, or to the company that then merged with the larger sister Gewofag. It can be heard from town hall circles that the supervisory board could decide on this at the end of January.
The fact that Müller has corresponding ambitions has been making the rounds in the town hall for some time. This week Jörg Hoffmann (FDP) addressed it in a city council meeting. As managing director of the municipal housing association, you are the top landlord of – only in relation to the GWG – 30,000 apartments (both companies together: 66,000) and have the obligation to complete hundreds of new apartments every year.
The previous managing directors, the lawyer and former SPD city councilor Christian Amlong, and the architect Gerda Peter each received an annual salary of around 215,000 euros in 2021. However, they were dismissed in the summer, also by Christian Müller, who sits as a member of the GWG supervisory board, chaired by Mayor Verena Dietl (also SPD). The previous authorized signatory, Armin Hagen, has been working as interim managing director of the GWG since November.
The post has often been politically occupied
On Friday, a second parliamentary group made the issue public: the ÖDP/Munich list demanded that future managerial posts be advertised at the municipal housing companies in a city council application. “A political occupation of the management post by a – with all due respect – completely unrelated person” would jeopardize the merger project, “a more suitable person” would be needed.
The opposition obviously sees an opportunity here to corner the governing coalition, accusing it of using its political power to provide its own people with posts. Christian Müller is a qualified social worker and works as a department head for day-care centers at Munich Caritas. However, due to his city council work, he is deeply involved in the subject of “affordable housing”.
Müller himself said on Friday that he was already in charge of an organizational unit with more than 700 employees at Caritas. Social affairs and housing are two key issues in his professional and political work: “What I do makes sense.”
Political occupations at the top of the municipal housing companies were not only from the SPD. In 2016, for example, the lawyer Max Straßer became Gewofag managing director, who had previously been a CSU city councilor. It remains unclear to what extent the possible personality of Müller has already been discussed in the coalition. The parliamentary group of the Greens did not want to comment on Friday.