On 14 December 2016, the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament passed the amendment to the state building code. The main parts of the new version will come into force one year after publication in the NRW Ministerial Gazette, i.e. in all probability at the beginning of 2018.
You can find the full article and a summary of the most important new features here:
www.aknw.de/...novelle-der-landesbauordnung
1:43 min, from February 2018, published by DJH Rheinland
Project Info: http://sdg21.eu/db/baumhaussiedlung-waldbroehl
Keywords:
Movies, Movies < 4 Min, Wood construction, Youth Hostel, News Blog NRW
Berlin, 9 July 2018. "We must break new ground in housing construction" - this is what 18 mayors of the "Sustainable City" dialogue demand in their Resolution paper "More sustainability of building land and soil policy".. The mayors call for the causes of the housing shortage to be addressed and for sustainable solutions to be developed in the long term. Simply sealing up natural landscapes and agricultural land would be to the detriment of future generations in cities and rural areas. A key role in the sustainable, equitable and inclusive development of local communities would be played by building land and soil policy. The heads of administration want to make affordable housing possible, guarantee a supply of day-care centres and green spaces close to home and protect natural resources. Internal development must take precedence over external development.
"Affordable housing cannot be realised in the long term without a fundamental further development of land policy. Our Basic Law puts it succinctly: property has an obligation," says Marlehn Thieme, Chair of the German Council for Sustainable Development. "In addition, the central importance of local authorities in the implementation of the global and national sustainability goals is repeatedly emphasised. This must then also be reflected in concrete policies and thus in the legal and financial framework conditions for sustainable development in the municipalities," says Marlehn Thieme.
In many places, the housing shortage is also exacerbated by the fact that land ready for construction remains unused for years. In the opinion of the mayors, it should be easier and quicker for the municipalities to mobilise these plots of land for reasons of sustainability. The municipalities should also have a right of access to such plots, which are an obstacle to the creation of inner-city housing or social infrastructure facilities close to residential areas. Specifically, the resolution paper goes on to say: "When granting building rights in accordance with § 34 BauGB, the municipality should be enabled to share in private profits that arise significantly from this."
The municipalities are already doing a lot to make housing affordable. But they could and want to do even more with an active municipal land policy and call on the federal government to improve the legal and financial framework for this. Furthermore, the federal government should specify which federally owned land is to be made available for social housing construction. In addition, the mayors demand that the facilitated designation of land in external areas be withdrawn, as it undermines the effective control of the Building Code, runs counter to the objectives of sustainable urban development - compact, mixed-use, with short distances - and integrated planning, and increases the long-term costs of maintaining the infrastructure.
The joint resolution paper "More sustainability of building land and land policy" is the result of the meeting of the Lord Mayors held on 14 June 2018 as part of the Sustainable City Dialogue. The German Council for Sustainable Development has supported the dialogue since 2010.
Keywords:
Stakeholders, Construction and operating costs, Soil & land consumption, Communities, SDG 2030, Housing policy, Economics
They sat unanimously next to each other: the mayor, the Peruvian mountain guide, high-ranking representatives of churches and foundations and activists...
Read the whole article from 1.12.2016 From Bonn in transition
Keywords:
Bonn, Transition Town, Environmental policy
Dr. Kirsten David, a researcher at HafenCity University (HCU) Hamburg, has developed an innovative method for determining rent increases after energy efficiency measures: By means of functional cost splitting, rent increases become appropriate and comprehensible. The planning of the energetic measures is also ecologically optimized. For her dissertation entitled "Functional Cost Splitting for the Determination of Rent Increases after Energy Efficiency Measures", the scientist today receives the "BUND Research Award 2020". With the research award, the Bund für Umwelt- und Naturschutz (BUND) honors scientific work on sustainable development.
Rent increases due to energy-efficient building modernisation are legally permissible and politically desired as an investment incentive. After all, according to the German Energy Agency (dena), around 35% of Germany's total energy consumption is attributable to the building sector. An increase in the renovation rate is therefore necessary from a climate policy perspective.
However, while the legislators assume that such measures can be implemented economically and without affecting the rent, the experience of many tenants is different: Often the rent increases exceed the saved heating and energy costs many times over. In extreme cases, tenants can no longer afford their apartments. "To this day, energy-efficient building refurbishment has a reputation as a gentrification tool," says David. With the method she developed to determine appropriate rent increases, the 45-year-old scientist also wants to contribute to an increased social acceptance of corresponding measures.
"The basis of the politically expected increase amounts is the so-called coupling principle," explains the architect. "Like the Energy Saving Ordinance, it assumes that energy efficiency measures will always be implemented when a comprehensive refurbishment is due anyway. The sticking point: only the modernization costs entitle landlords* to rent increases, but not the costs for the renovation. The latter must be deducted from the total investment sum as "anyway costs". Eight percent of the remaining costs can be passed on to the tenants as a modernisation charge.
"The current regulation is insufficient. In practice, there are manifold demarcation problems between modernisation costs relevant to rent increases and maintenance costs not relevant to rent increases," says David. The method she developed, on the other hand, focuses on the climate-relevant improvement of each individual building component compared to its condition before the construction measure. "Functional cost splitting thus corresponds to the actual basic idea of the legislators, is practicable and enables an appropriate and comprehensible allocation to modernisation or refurbishment costs," says David.
According to the scientist, her approach leads to the omission of measures that are nonsensical from a structural engineering point of view and do not bring about any climate-relevant improvement of the building components: "With my method, such measures are not relevant for rent increases and are therefore uneconomical for landlords. In addition, your calculation method ensures that the modernization levy actually approaches the level of the ancillary cost savings as a rule. The award winner is therefore particularly pleased that the sustainability aspect of her work has been recognised with the BUND Research Award: "Rental housing stock can only be developed sustainably if ecological, economic and social aspects are given equal consideration. Functional cost splitting makes a significant contribution to this."
This year, the BUND Research Award will be presented at a virtual conference. Among other things, keynote speaker and environmental scientist Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker will discuss with the three award winners how science can develop more relevance and effectiveness for sustainability goals. The transfer into practice is also an important concern for David. Her next goal is to further develop functional cost splitting into an instrument that can also be understood by laypersons - preferably as an online tool.
Personal details:
Kirsten David is a guest researcher at HCU in the subject areas "Design and Analysis of Structures" with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Annette Bögle and "Construction Economics" with Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Reinhold Johrendt as well as a lecturer in the interdisciplinary study programmes. Her doctoral thesis was supervised by Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Reinhold Johrendt and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Krüger, (subject area "Project Management and Project Development in Urban Planning") and is freely available:
https://edoc.sub.uni-hamburg.de//hcu/volltexte/2019/508/.
David runs the homepage
www.funktionales-kostensplitting.de
and tweets on topics such as rents, housing and sustainability.
https://twitter.com/DrKirstenDavid1
Keywords:
Construction and operating costs, Stock, DE-News, Research, Climate protection, New books and studies, Contests & Prizes
