Local governments - Between 700 and 800 instances of job vacancies and misappropriations have been reported.
After five months of enforcing a rule against unwanted empty apartments in Landau, officials there have received around 700-800 reports of vacancies or misuses. This information was shared by a spokesperson from the city's administration in response to a question. The spokesperson noted that these aren't accurate numbers for vacancies, but rather the initial reports following the implementation of the vacancy ban ordinance introduced by Mayor Dominik Geißler. The precise figures will be released later once the building department finishes going over all the reports. There could still be fluctuations up or down, according to the spokesperson.
This information was also reported in the newspaper Die Rheinpfalz.
In January, the administration sent out letters to around 20,000 apartment owners. As only 8,140 correct responses on 321 misuses had been counted by March, a second round of outreach had started.
The goal of the vacancy ban ordinance in Landau is to address the issue of vacant apartments. It has been in place since the beginning of the year. Owners who keep their Landau apartments empty for more than six months without renting them out are subject to a fine. Similar rules exist in other cities like Stuttgart, Munich, Mainz, Trier, and Speyer. When the rule was introduced in January, Mayor Geißler (CDU) said there were anywhere between 500 and 1,000 empty apartments in Landau.
