On May 11, 2022, the Aachen City Council adopted the Housing Action Plan as the city's future overall housing policy strategy. In future, municipal housing development will benefit from tailor-made strategies, instruments and measures that address the specific challenges facing the city of Aachen on the housing market.
At the beginning of May 2021, the PT RWTH Chair presented the results and analyses of the participatory process to the general public at a digital information event and discussed them extensively with high-ranking municipal representatives and interested citizens. You can watch the event again directly here:
During the process, a large number of housing market players from social associations, tenant protection, the housing industry, trade unions, politics and administration came together to update Aachen's housing action plan and took part in three specialist forums. Three topics were discussed in order to jointly develop smart solutions for the challenges facing Aachen's housing market:
- Social housing provision & quality assurance in existing buildings
- Building land development
- Quality in the neighborhood
The starting point for the expert forums were the results of the digital public participation in spring 2020 (with 182 participants) and an inter-municipal comparative analysis of the Chair of Planning Theory and Urban Development at RWTH Aachen University on housing-related municipal action instruments.
1st expert forum "Social housing provision & quality assurance in existing buildings"
At two themed tables, the forum dealt with the creation of affordable housing through demand-oriented new construction activities and with quality assurance in existing housing. In this context, in addition to issues of publicly subsidized housing construction and the need for a price-controlled market segment, the creation of minimum standards in housing supply, the avoidance of displacement effects during modernization and the specific needs of special target groups (including senior citizens, families, students) were also discussed
2nd specialist forum "Building land development"
The second forum introduced the two topics of building land activation and concept awards based on presentations by three top-class external experts.
- Julia Gottlieb, Head of the City of Solingen's Planning, Mobility and Monument Preservation Department, presented the Solingen model for activating building land by approaching private owners. In her presentation, she highlighted the following key points: Internal development before external development, quality and target group focus, intensive owner activation and the establishment of an alliance for housing.
- Birgit Kasper, head of the coordination and advice center in the Frankfurt network for communal living, explained the concept procedure of the city of Frankfurt am Main in her presentation. The success factors of the procedure are its open and low-threshold character, which allows interested groups to outline their ideas. The land is then awarded at a fixed price to the group that has submitted the best concept as part of a transparent evaluation system. In the initial phase of housing projects, which is particularly challenging for the groups, the city continues to provide quality control and support for the projects.
- Ludger Kloidt, Managing Director of NRW.URBAN, concludes by presenting the various programs offered by the state of NRW for land development. In particular, the two program components Bau.Land.Partner (strengthening inner development, activation of sites and "help for self-help") and Bau.Land.Kommunal (instrument for financial and personnel support for municipalities in building land development, retention of design and decision-making authority) will be examined in more detail.
The thematic impulses of the external experts were then discussed in greater depth at two themed tables and discussed in relation to the Aachen framework conditions. In particular, the "Concept allocation" table emphasized the need for corresponding procedures to be politically legitimized, open and low-threshold and based on a flexible approach. Against the background of the current situation on Aachen's land market, the second table sees a focus on smaller but unproblematic potential areas as a particularly promising strategy for creating new residential building land. Particular emphasis should be placed on an intensive exchange between administration and owners, and new, high-quality advisory services should be created for this purpose.
3rd expert forum "Quality in the neighborhood"
In two large working groups, the third dealt on the one hand with the activation of land potential for the development of new neighborhoods, and on the other with the topic of good housing in the neighborhood and how neighborhood-specific housing solutions could be designed. To kick things off, three experts gave short keynote speeches on the following topics:
- Courage to develop: Designing large districts and new housing (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Förster)
- A typification of Aachen's districts (Dr. Marius Otto)
- Potential and prerequisites for the creation of future-oriented housing from the perspective of the housing industry (Martin Dornieden)
In the ensuing discussion, the importance of the regional perspective in strategic housing development is emphasized.