By 2023, there will be a shortage of around 80,000 apartments in the Munich district. This was calculated by the Planning Association of the Outer Economic Area. Assuming that all these apartments were built by then, the question remains: Who can afford to rent or even buy them? According to an analysis by Empirica from 2018, the district of Munich ranks fourth among the most expensive regions in Germany. As in all major cities, affordable living space is one of the major issues, and the problem of constantly rising real estate prices has long affected the surrounding area as well. The square meter price for building land in the district rose by an average of 214.1 percent between 2009 and 2019. The city of Munich has been controlling housing construction with the instrument of socially just land use (Sobon) since 1994 and has just tightened the regulations again. But can this model for skimming off planning profits from newly created building rights also be transferred to the district?
Tina Haller and Florian Schardt from the Managerkreis Bayern of the SPD-affiliated Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation investigated this question and analyzed the instruments of housing procurement for their study in 16 of the 29 municipalities and cities of the district. They found that only six municipalities have so far had a codified Sobon regulation. This stipulates that with new building rights, part of the area can be purchased by the municipality in order to build affordable living space there. There is also the option of obliging the investor to build subsidized or social housing on a certain proportion of the area, around 30 percent, and to accept a long commitment period. According to the study, Planegg, Putzbrunn, Kirchheim, Garching, Unterföhring and Unterschleißheim have had different Sobon regulations over the past five to ten years.
“It’s not as easy as in the city, where property owners often remain anonymous,” says Schardt. He is SPD district chairman and lives in Ottobrunn himself, a small municipality in terms of area, most of which is built up. Schardt can explain the reluctance in many communities to regulate housing construction with such a key element as the Sobon: “In the district, the land often belongs to the farmers who you meet at the bakery the next day, or who sit on the municipal councils themselves. ” That has a “different flavor” since it is an encroachment on property.
The number of publicly subsidized housing units has been falling for years
However, it is also a fact that the decline in publicly subsidized housing units is exacerbating the problem. In their study, Schardt and Haller note the figures from the district office: According to this, in 2012 there were 1706 such apartments in 20 municipalities, in 2020 there were only 1201. This corresponds to a decrease of around 30 percent. The two authors of the study warn that the demographic development will further increase the housing shortage. This is because apartment occupancy, measured in inhabitants per apartment, tends to decrease in aging societies. The main reason for this is seen as the fact that many parents stay in their houses or apartments even after the children have moved out. “In this respect, the trend towards increasing living space per inhabitant is likely to continue in the coming years,” write Haller and Schardt. Added to this is the shortage of skilled workers, because the group of employed people will decrease, while the number of seniors over 65 years of age, as well as children and young people, will increase. According to the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) for Munich and Upper Bavaria, there will be a skills gap of 1.33 million people in Bavaria by 2030. In the district of Munich, this corresponds to a gap of around 35,000 employees, i.e. ten percent of the district population, according to the study.
In their surveys of mayors and members of the municipal council, however, it also became clear that the municipalities are encountering considerable resistance from the population due to the continuing influx with the often necessary subsequent densification. The places in the district of Munich are characterized by a high proportion of single-family houses, multi-storey and social housing is rejected because there are fears of ghettoization. The resistance seems to be particularly strong in communities that show rather low relative growth. As a result, although building land is available, no new building rights have been identified by the municipal councils.
The makers of the studies see well-designed Sobon rules as a suitable instrument for actively promoting the creation of affordable housing in the district. They not only offer the opportunity to contribute to the mix of residential areas in the community, but also to involve the developers in the financing of infrastructure, childcare facilities, schools and roads. The greatest challenge for the municipalities is acquiring the increasingly expensive plots of land, especially since attractive subsidies such as the Free State’s municipal housing subsidy program, which is only valid until the end of 2023, expire, Haller pointed out.
The study also shows alternatives. The locals model, which has been known for a long time, is seen as a phased-out model, since an economic realization is almost impossible due to the real estate prices for the persons entitled to support, especially in the greater Munich area. Cooperative living, on the other hand, which has so far hardly played a role in the district of Munich, is increasingly attracting interest in the communities. In most cases, however, there is still a lack of capacity and local know-how.