After Daniel Föst’s first speech, chatting started. Every second, objections to the representation of the FDP member of the Bundestag from Munich on the municipal right of first refusal are received. “Mr Föst, unfortunately that is not the reality. It is being massively suppressed and driven out for reasons of investment in real estate in Munich,” writes a tenant. Someone else: “Protecting the environment is expensive? It’s expensive to accommodate homeless people.”
It was clear that Föst would have a difficult time this Tuesday evening. After all, it was the Munich Tenants’ Association and the “Ausspeculation” initiative that invited five members of the Bundestag to an online discussion. The topic was how the city of Munich and other municipalities in Germany would get back the right of first refusal for apartment buildings in conservation statute areas, which has effectively been annulled since a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court last November.
In recent years, Munich has spent around 500 million euros on the right of first refusal, which a municipality can use to enter into a closed purchase agreement between two private parties – if the property is in a conservation statute area. These are primarily inner-city quarters in which the traditional population is to be protected from displacement and the milieu is to be protected. 20 percent of Munich residents live in such areas. The city transferred 1,049 apartments to its GWG and Gewofag companies by right of first refusal.
However, the court declared the previous practice to be unlawful. Now the large German municipalities, the Bundesrat and in the Bundestag the government factions of the SPD and Greens as well as the left and parts of the Union from the opposition are campaigning for a quick change to the building code. On this evening, Munich MP Wolfgang Stefinger committed to the right of first refusal for the CSU in the Bundestag.
The next big step is scheduled for May 9th
Alone, the FDP has not yet participated. “We have questions about environmental protection,” says Daniel Föst, and these have not yet been answered. “The right of first refusal is a very expensive instrument.” He could imagine many social issues that could have been financed with that half a billion euros. But Föst also emphasizes: “We don’t block ourselves in principle.” The right of first refusal is also a matter for negotiation in the traffic light coalition.
The next big step is on May 9th. A hearing with experts on the subject is then scheduled in the Bundestag. Claudia Thousand, SPD housing politician in the Bundestag and also from Munich, reports that the Ministry of Construction, headed by her party colleague Klara Geywitz, is working intensively on a draft law on the right of first refusal. “We want to be able to present it on May 9th so that we can then discuss the text,” announced thousands.
However, she does not want to commit to a date for a change in the law. Christina-Johanne Schröder, spokeswoman for housing policy for the Greens in the Bundestag, dares to go further: She assumes that the traffic lights will come to an agreement and “that we can give the instrument back to the municipalities before the summer break”.
Caren Lay (left) also emphasizes this point and thus addresses a skeptic like Föst: The federal government only creates the framework conditions, the municipalities can decide with their majority ratios whether and how often they use the right of first refusal.
Actually a liberal idea, one might think. FDP man Föst does not go into this in the discussion. When asked, he later emphasizes that the Bundestag can only form an opinion about a change in the law “when the Ministry of Building has delivered”. In addition, there are “national standards for good reason when it comes to encroaching on property”.