Converting offices and adding storeys: Greens make proposals
The Greens in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament want to simplify building with several changes to the state building regulations. This is the result of an impulse paper adopted by the parliamentary group on Tuesday, which is available to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "Affordable housing is the key issue for many people in Baden-Württemberg. And more building is a prerequisite for this," said parliamentary group leader Andreas Schwarz. The aim is to modernize the state building regulations. Schwarz said that his group's proposals would bring together affordable housing, innovative construction and climate protection.
One of the MPs' ideas is to convert more office buildings into apartments. "Due to the trend towards working from home, many office spaces are unused. There is great potential for conversion here," the paper states. An estimated 30,000 apartments could be created by 2025.
According to the Green parliamentary group, the conversion of office buildings is currently possible, but very complicated - and is therefore rarely used in practice. The parliamentary group wants to change this and is therefore calling for a procedure-free conversion of office buildings into residential buildings. This could ease the situation on the housing market in the medium term. "Because the conversion of buildings is quicker than a complete new build," it said.
The government faction also wants to achieve more redensification in cities, for example by increasing the number of apartments on roofs. To this end, the parliamentary group wants to amend the state building regulations so that the current regulations only apply to additional apartments on roofs - and not to existing buildings, as may currently be the case.
In the view of the Greens, a major cost driver in construction is the obligation to build parking spaces for cars. "Underground car parks in particular drive up costs," the paper states. The parliamentary group therefore wants to create a regulation that parking spaces can be dispensed with if they are not necessary - for example, if parking garages are being built on the edge of a neighborhood anyway. The parliamentary group also wants building materials to be better recycled and climate change adaptation to be taken into account when building in future.
Housing Minister Nicole Razavi (CDU) had already presented plans in August to simplify building law. She plans to completely remove requirements for the construction of parking spaces from the state building regulations and transfer them to the local authorities. These could then use their own bylaws to determine whether parking spaces must be built when constructing new residential buildings. Currently, one parking space per apartment must be created when creating new living space.
In addition, the requirement for developers to build playgrounds above a certain building size is to be abolished. According to the ministry, they will be able to buy their way out of this obligation in future by making redemption payments. Local authorities would then be able to use the proceeds to build their own playgrounds.
Razavi had also proposed abolishing the objection procedure against building applications in order to shorten the approval process for building applications. Building owners and neighbors can currently appeal against an approved building application. The procedure takes between 6 and 14 months on average.
The Greens suggest modifying the state housing policy to facilitate the conversion of office buildings into apartments, recognizing the potential for creating 30,000 apartments due to the work-from-home trend. Additionally, they advocate for simplifying the process of converting office buildings into residential buildings, aiming to alleviate the housing market pressure in the near future.
Source: www.dpa.com
