Berlin building boom on the horizon?

Once a military parade ground for the Prussian army and later famously the base for the Berlin Airlift, Tempelhofer Feld, as it is now officially called, opened to the public as a recreational area in 2010. Stretching out over more than 300 hectares, it is one of the largest green urban spaces in the world and a favorite for locals and tourists alike. Now, once-discarded plans to build here are gaining new momentum. The Berlin government would like to see the construction of numerous five- to 10-story buildings and several individual high-rise buildings, shrinking the central inner meadow area from 305 hectares to 180 hectares (roughly 754 acres to 445 acres). Half of the built-up area would become commercial space. Plans to develop the former airfield were scuppered by a locally organized referendum in 2014. However, the incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), spoke out in the run-up to the federal elections in February suggesting politicians must be prepared to build on the land even if it is against the will of local residents. The lack of affordable housing and skyrocketing rents in Germany has become perhaps the most pressing social issue of the century. There is a shortage of over 800,000 apartments, according to the Federal Statistical Office, and the median monthly asking rent in Berlin has risen by 85.2% from €8.50 per square meter in 2015 to €15.74 in 2024.

To tackle the problem, Germany's incoming coalition government of the Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) has announced plans to turbo-charge housing construction ("Wohnungsbau-Turbo"), slash bureaucracy, cut taxes and provide funding programs for construction and modernization.Around two-thirds of voters rejected plans to build on Tempelhofer Feld, a former airfield turned public recreational ground and nature reserve, in 2014Image: Jürgen Held/IMAGO The plans were quickly welcomed as "a huge step forward" by the Federal Association of German Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW). The construction industry interest group pointed in particular to "simplifications" of planning, procurement and environment law, as well as a proposed housing construction investment fund. Berlin still looking for a way out of the housing crisis Berlin's Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing estimates that over 100,000 new apartments are needed to ease the overheated market as it stands today. Around 200,000 people are expected to move to Berlin by 2040, meaning the city needs to build an average of 20,000 new apartments a year to meet the expected demand. However, its latest statistics show a decline in construction activity in 2023 where just 15,965 apartments were completed — attributed to poor economic conditions and rising interest rates.

Attempts to ease the housing crisis, from rent control to stricter tenancy laws, to attempts to crack down on speculators leaving properties empty or only renting out short-term fully-furnished apartments, have all failed, says Christian Müller, chairman of the Association of Architects and Engineers of Berlin-Brandenburg (AIV).What it's like to be a working homeless person in GermanyTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Centrally located and well connected, Müller is in favor of a well-designed development on the edge of Tempelhofer Feld as a compromise between the various interest groups — also because the site is publicly owned and, therefore, significantly cheaper for developers. "It is important that fairly priced apartments are built there. It should be a good mix. The state-owned housing associations must be involved and we must maintain diversity," Müller told DW. While he admits that Tempelhofer Feld has been extremely well received by local residents, like state and federal politicians, he says the housing situation has changed dramatically. "90% of Berliners want everything to stay as it is. Until they receive notice to vacate and have to look for an apartment themselves on the housing market," Müller says, adding that housing for 100,000 people could be created on the entire area without it being too cramped.Little trust in the promise of affordable homes Part nature reserve, part leisure park, Tempelhofer Feld is now home to numerous community projects from an experimental space for sustainable architecture to artist-run spaces, a bicycle repair workshop and a chess clubhouse. It's also a nesting site for several of Germany's endangered bird species, among them skylarks, and a herd of Skudden sheep, an endangered breed, have been relocated here to help promote biodiversity.

"The Feld is unique. It only works as a whole — take away even a part of it, and you destroy its entire value," says Anita Möller, a member of the citizens' action group "100% Tempelhofer Feld," which organized the referendum that stopped the site from being developed back in 2014. Looking out over the community gardens that have sprung up on Tempelhofer Feld where green-fingered residents grow flowers and vegetables, Möller points to a 2021 study by the Berlin Senate's own Environment Department that emphasized the unique character of the urban space with its mixture of large nature conservation and recreational areas. The study also highlighted its ecological importance in terms of maintaining biodiversity, improving air quality and cooling the densely populated surrounding neighborhoods.Anita Möller says plans to build on Tempelhofer Feld are more about making money for investors and speculators than tackling the housing crisisImage: Helen Whittle/DW Back in 2014, around two-thirds of voters (64.3%) decided in favor of protecting the space from development and the resulting preservation act prohibits the building or expansion of existing buildings on the site. Now, Berlin's CDU-SPD coalition government — which came to power in a 2023 election where 39% of voters cited housing as the single most important issue ahead of any other — is once again exploring plans to build there. Its 2023 coalition agreement states that "deviations" from previous commitments to not sell state-owned land "may be permitted in individual cases for housing cooperatives oriented towards the common good." And they have already launched a series of public consultations and an international urban-planning competition for ideas on how best to develop the former airfield.

For now, the suggestion is to only build on the periphery — Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) told the Tagesspiegel newspaper in November 2024 it would be possible to build 15,000 to 20,000 apartments on the edges — but there's fierce opposition even to that. Berlin's opposition Green and Left parties accuse the CDU-SPD coalition of wasting millions of taxpayers' money on public consultations and urban planning competitions in a bid to sway public opinion in favor of building apartments that, in reality, only a tiny proportion of residents could afford. "They keep claiming it's about housing needs, but let's be honest: it's about money, speculation and investor dreams. If it were really about solving the housing crisis, we have better options," Möller says, referencing the government's City Development Plan 2040 that identifies other sites where up to 222,000 homes could be built. The idea that the path to more affordable homes requires more construction is outdated, according to Möller, who believes that the government needs to invest in new kinds of "democratic and sustainable" urban development that "respects our environmental limits and the value of open space." For now, at least the area is protected by the Tempelhofer Feld Preservation Act introduced after the referendum in 2014. But, as Möller points out, that could easily be overturned by a majority vote in the Berlin Senate. "Affordable housing has failed elsewhere. Why should we believe it will suddenly work here? Once it's built on, it's lost forever," she says. Edited by: Rina Goldenberg While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.