There have never been as many vacant office spaces in Germany as there are now, writes NIUS, bemoaning that these spaces could be used to solve a major crisis: the lack of affordable housing across Germany.
Around 152,000 additional apartments with an average size of 70 square meters could be created in Germany’s seven most important cities if offices were redesigned accordingly, claims a study by the real estate consultant Bulwiengesa on behalf of Berlin Hyp.
Due to the Covid crisis that impacted businesses, followed by general economic stagnation, office vacancy rates have been spiking. Meanwhile, Germany faces a shortage of some 800,000 apartments.
As pointed out by NIUS, there is the issue of converting offices into residential spaces. Germany currently has some 20,000 building regulations. “These, along with rising interest rates and construction and material costs, are responsible for making construction comparatively expensive,” says Alexander Fieback of Bulwiengesa.
New permits, complex retrofitting of plumbing and balconies, different fire and sound insulation requirements, and new staircases are just some of the things that must have to be addressed — not to mention converting the normally grandiose entrances of office buildings into ground-floor apartments. All the above often also mandates structural retrofits.
Nevertheless, money is being spent to overcome these challenges in the name of housing more migrants, at taxpayers’ expense.
The Berlin Senate, for example, is planning large-scale accommodations for asylum seekers to live permanently in one building where the owner had offered offices for €25.80 per square meter; according to the Berliner Morgenpost, the State Office for Refugees is paying €40 per square meter.
Other examples include €165 million in Kreuzberg (1,500 people, 10-year lease); €143 million in Lichtenberg (1,200 people, rental period 10 years); and €118 million in Westend (950 people, rental period 10 years).
As Germans face housing crisis, thousands of office buildings are being converted for migrants