(42 min.) from November 2015:
www.spiegel.tv/filme/intelligente-haeuser
Keywords: IBA, News Blog Hamburg, Quarters, Settlements
(42 min.) from November 2015:
www.spiegel.tv/filme/intelligente-haeuser
25.03.2019 - The German Trade Union Confederation is today launching a nationwide week of action on the subject of housing. Under the motto "Affordable is half the rent", more than 200 actions and events will take place throughout Germany. The action week is the nationwide public launch of the DGB dialogue on the future.
The DGB Chairman Reiner Hoffmann declares at the start of the action week:
"We want to talk to local people and find out from them: What problems do they face in finding housing, rents and service charges. An ever greater proportion of income is eaten up by rents and many people can no longer afford a flat near their place of work. Workers' interests do not end at the factory gate. Affordable housing is the new social issue of our time."
Stefan Körzell in an interview with tagesschau24:
DGB Executive Board Member Stefan Körzell said in Berlin on Monday:
"Rising rents are a problem for more and more workers. They are also the result of decades of failed housing policy. The market failure in the housing sector is obvious - now politics must intervene strongly and steadily. At least 400,000 new and affordable homes are needed each year, including 100,000 social housing units. The federal and state governments must jointly provide seven billion euros annually for this purpose. The money the federal government has so far earmarked for social housing construction is not even enough to maintain the existing stock. In addition, politicians should take more decisive action against land speculation, for example by obliging owners to build on their land within the framework of building law."
With the DGB Future Dialogue, the DGB and its member unions are launching a broad social dialogue. We are asking people, collecting their answers and using them to develop impulses for fairer policies in Germany. The action week from 25 to 29 March is the nationwide public launch of the DGB dialogue on the future. Hundreds of other events will follow throughout Germany in the coming years. The debate on the dialogue on the future is taking place online at www.redenwirueber.de - there you will also find all further information.
Keywords:
Stakeholders, Housing policy, eG, Economics
No stopping, no weaving through, no suddenly opened car doors: With the expansion of motorways for bicycles only, Norway's government wants to create an incentive to take the bike more often.
Norway's goal: less harmful emissions, and soon. Pollutant emissions from traffic and transport are to be reduced by as much as 50 per cent. For car traffic in the city, this means: It should not grow any further without restricting the mobility of citizens. In this context, the Norwegian government speaks of a "zero-growth" target.
Link to the article from (unfortunately no longer online; as of 10/2020):
Keywords:
Bike-/Velo-City, News Blog Europe (without DE), News Blog Norway
WIESBADEN: In 2014, companies in Germany achieved a turnover of 3.7 billion euros with goods and services from the solar industry. Compared to 2011, the last economically strong year, this corresponds to an overall decline in turnover of 74.2% or 10.6 billion euros. The crisis in the solar industry in Germany was already apparent in previous years: turnover totalled 9.5 billion in 2012 and 5.1 billion in 2013. The declining economic importance of the solar industry in Germany is primarily due to negative developments in the photovoltaic industry. Between 2011 and 2014, sales of photovoltaic systems and components fell by 75.5 % from 13.3 to 3.3 billion euros. Turnover also fell sharply in the solar thermal sector - from 1.0 billion euros in 2011 to 0.4 billion euros in 2014. Detailed results can be found in the specialist series "Turnover in environmental protection goods and services, 2014". Further information on the survey can be found in the environmental economics section.
The German Solar Energy Society DGS has commented on the developments in a pointed manner: www.dgs.de/index.php?id=3364&type=0#13585 (5th article in the newsletter of 22 July 2016)
Source: Press release destatis.de
Keywords:
DE-News, Renewable, PV, 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