Housing market: “investors take advantage of the Plight of the cities, singing in the streets”

Contents page 1 — “The investors take advantage of the Plight of the cities, singing in the streets” page 2 — “The state can’t build faster, but cheaper” On a page

land, money, and planners: the housing crisis read there is a shortage of everything, Sebastian Dullien convinced. The economist from April, the leadership of the Union-affiliated Institute for macroeconomics and economic research (IMK), which has led to Gustav Horn. He is one of the few Economists in Germany, who represented the offensive left positions. Dullien argues for a strong expansion of the public housing. Serial Build – well plate in a big way – could be cheap and modern.

TIME ONLINE: Mr. Dullien, a Berlin discussed the expropriation of private residential companies. This is the right way to go against the housing crisis?

Sebastian Dullien: The basic law says very clearly: the property required and also serve the General public.

TIME ONLINE: It is not so that the apartments in Berlin are all empty.

Dullien: If heaters do not work over weeks, and then the companies of their obligation not to come. We would never argue about expropriation, if there were companies such as Deutsche Wohnen, the use of any gap in the regulation, in order to increase the Rent and at the same time maximize its own profit without regard to the tenant.

Sebastian Dullien

from April, the leadership of the Union-affiliated Institute for macroeconomics and economic research (IMK). Previously, he was Professor of Economics at the University of technology and Economics in Berlin.

Zeit ONLINE: But you have to take away the corporations, then the flats?

Dullien: As a last resort, I think nationalisation is perfectly acceptable. If someone repeatedly violates the rules, then expropriation can be in a market economy, is an acceptable measure. I am, however, in Berlin’s case, not sure whether the expropriation is really a good step. The Problem is that The state must compensate the former owners at market value. This is quite expensive. And the money used can not be reused, to reduce the housing shortage. In the end you would only help a part of the tenant – those who happen to live in one of the public property transferred apartment.

Zeit ONLINE: But why can’t be tightened once the existing legal rules?

Dullien: The Problem is that the rules are already broken today without great consequences permanent. Berlin requested for residential projects, a certain proportion of social housing. But what the city does not, if the Investor holds the default?

TIME ONLINE: you sued him.

Dullien: The Investor will stop the time to build. The city imposed penalties, the Investor complains about it. And so it goes on and on. In the end, the politicians are bending, because you so desperately need new apartments. The investors take advantage of the Plight of the cities, singing in the streets. In Berlin, the city has made to an Investor about requirements for social housing – and at the end of the social housing at the side of the road as the sound of the built-in protection for the luxury apartments.

Zeit ONLINE: What can be done to counter this imbalance of Power?

Dullien: The state, the country, the municipality must build a much stronger self. The planning law must be simplified, and it is much more staff needs to be recruited. In the building authorities in the past few years massive Bodies have been mined. According to surveys by the German Institute for economic research, the number of employees, their tasks in the fields of construction, housing and transport is decreased in the municipal administrations since the beginning of the nineties, more than a third.

Zeit ONLINE: in Germany We have almost full employment. Ver.di complains already to pay the prevailing Tariff, the administration hardly find any people. How do the planners and architects?

Dullien: The Federal government could, for example, establish a company, the staff adjusts to market conditions and the then – cheaper – to the city of God.

The Federal government could establish a public temporary employment Agency for planning capacities.

TIME ONLINE: The Federal government should as a Temporary work Agency act?

Dullien: Yes, he could be something of a public temporary employment Agency for planning capacity, at the temporarily construction professionals with higher salaries recruited. The Problem is: With the current salary structures in the public service, we don’t get fast enough all the people that we need now, after so many years staff has been cut. Many prefer to go to the private developer. In the long term, the authorities must be made the cuts, the municipal administrations with permanent staff, better equipped and salaries are again adjusted in accordance with the above, but in the short term can help as a “quick reaction Force”.

TIME ONLINE: There is a lack not only of personnel in the administration.

Dullien: There is a lack of land, money, and planners. In addition, investors are building private homes, we do not need at all: luxury, instead of social housing. Building permits are now applied, often only to drive the price of the land. A land plot with approval is, of course, worth more than without. If you look at the statistics of issued building permits and started constructions, the gap between the Numbers is increasing.