Housing development

Developable land within Aachen's urban area is finite. In order to be able to create and expand living space despite this, the city of Aachen has initiated various measures together with politicians and the Aachen housing industry.

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• Promotion of rental apartments and single-family rental homes through new construction
• Promotion of rental apartments and single-family rental homes through structural measures in existing buildings
• Promotion of group housing for older people, people in need of care or people with disabilities and students
• Funding for student residences
• Promotion of housing for people with disabilities in facilities with a comprehensive range of services
• Promotion of new construction and initial purchase, as well as new creation through expansion and modification of owner-occupied residential property
• Promotion of non-price-restricted apartments (indirect occupancy)
• Promotion of site preparation(*)
  • (*)Funding for site preparation is additionally possible in all funding modules with the exception of housing modernization.
    
• Promotion of the modernization of living space

After around 20 months of construction, the first apartments in the "Burggrafenstrasse Süd" construction phase in Burggrafenstrasse are now ready for occupation. The result is 44 apartments, around 60% of which are publicly subsidized. All apartments are barrier-free, and two apartments are specially designed to meet the needs of wheelchair users.

A smart living concept is also being tested for the first time, which promises greater convenience in everyday living thanks to a digital infrastructure. In addition, a mobile station will be set up with various mobility carriers, such as car sharing, bicycle rental, electric charging stations and cargo bikes, to promote the high quality of the open spaces close to the apartments. The aim of this pilot project is to enable residents to do without their own vehicle thanks to the wide range of services on offer.

In addition to multi-storey residential construction, a pool of investors, including individual investors, is building single-family rental homes in the publicly subsidized price segment throughout Aachen.

These are single-family homes that are rented to families with a valid certificate of eligibility for housing. The houses are built in different sizes and with a different number of rooms, making them suitable for small families through to large families.

A special feature of the houses is that they can be retrofitted for wheelchair users as a minimum.
The houses are equipped with their own garden, so that the corresponding quality of open space is also offered.

In order to protect the privacy of the families who live in the houses, the addresses etc. are deliberately not given here.

Another "building block" of the neighborhood development around the "Talbothöfe" is the Miteinander im Wiesental residential project.

23 adults and 13 children share their anticipation of communal living. A 5-storey building with 16 residential units is being built on a plot of land measuring around 1,500 m², which was made available to the building group as part of a heritable building right.

40% of the residential units (6 residential units) are being built as part of publicly subsidized housing. In addition to two apartments, the first floor will include a spacious communal room, a guest apartment and a bicycle and laundry cellar.

The first floor and the entire staircase will be built in solid construction, while floors 1-4 will be built in timber frame construction.

The house will be heated by a brine-to-water heat pump, thereby achieving the Efficiency House 40 standard. This is supplemented by a photovoltaic system and extensive and intensive green roofs.

Nizzaallee, at the foot of the Lousberg in Aachen, is one of the best residential addresses in Aachen.

In this outstanding location, a private investor has built 157 apartments for students on an 8,200 m² park-like plot. The apartments are in a prime location, as both the RWTH and the city center are within walking distance. The Pontviertel district, which is popular with students, is also nearby. They are let at a rent of around € 215 plus operating costs (heating costs, electricity costs, internet).

The property, which was built as an Efficiency House 55, was completed in September 2022. The majority of the apartments are already occupied.
In the interests of climate friendliness, there are plans to equip the property with a photovoltaic system in the future.

As part of the "Socially Integrative City" urban development programme, the federal and state governments support the stabilization and upgrading of urban, economically and socially disadvantaged and structurally weak districts. In Aachen-Nord, work continued until 2019 with a focus on housing and the residential environment, among other things.

In the course of this, renovation work has been carried out in recent years on the municipal buildings at Sigmundstraße 9, 11-17 and 22-24, Hein-Janssen-Straße 15-17, Reimanstraße 2-6 and 8-12, Joseph-von-Görres-Straße 1-15, Jülicher Straße 156, 162 and 164 and Dennewartstraße 47.

With the support of various social housing funding programs and supplementary funding, a total of around 255 residential units have been renovated. This created an attractive mix of 2 to 5-room apartments in the district, which are rented out in the low-price segment.

Particular attention was paid to the protection of listed buildings. The refurbished properties are all listed buildings, meaning that it was not possible to install an elevator system, for example, as the stairwell could not be altered.

Some of the apartments were completely redesigned, new floor plans were created, high-quality triple-glazed wooden windows were installed and they were equipped with energy-efficient district heating and a controlled ventilation system.

The heat supply in the buildings at Joseph-von-Görres-Straße 1-15, Jülicher Straße 156, 162 and 164 and Dennewartstraße 47 is a special feature. This is ensured by a combination of district heating and a connection to the existing wastewater heating system in Wiesental.

A sewer runs through the Wiesental area, which is used to dispose of wastewater from around 150,000 Aachen residents. At least 300 liters of wastewater flow through the 3.20 meter wide and 2.55 meter high sewer every second. Due to the hot thermal springs, the wastewater has a temperature of around 15 degrees Celsius even in winter, which would otherwise remain unused. The wastewater flows over a length of around 80 meters through built-in stainless steel plates, so-called heat exchangers, which heat the clean cold water inside. The heated water then flows into the heat pump circuit of the heating center. There are two heat pumps and two storage tanks with a capacity of 1,200 liters. The water is heated to a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius and supplied to the residential buildings via a local heating network.

This is the largest system of its kind in Europe. An immensely important contribution to climate protection! This concept provides a carbon-dioxide-neutral heat supply.

On Stolberger Strasse, gewoge AG has built a total of 77 rental apartments in five buildings on a plot of around 7,910 square meters by the end of 2016. 44 of the two- to five-room apartments are publicly subsidized.

The residential project on Stolberger Strasse offers comfortable and barrier-free apartments for younger and older people with or without assistance needs, single or as a family, including 4 wheelchair-accessible apartments and a group apartment with 5 wheelchair-accessible apartments. The housing offer is combined with a residents' meeting place as a place of communication and togetherness, which is open to all people in the neighborhood. At the same time, a social service provider with a service point in the residential complex offers a comprehensive range of care and assistance that can be utilized as required.

Complete funding was obtained from the NRW Ministry of Construction for the construction of the residential complex. The prerequisite for receiving this special funding is, for example, a high level of urban planning and architectural quality, which is guaranteed at Stolberger Strasse, for example, by horizontal elevators, universal accessibility, high-quality open space planning and high energy standards.

In Aachen North, gewoge AG has created attractive living space in recent years as part of a neighborhood development. The Talbothöfe residential complex offers liveable accommodation for a variety of resident structures in a green, urban residential environment.

The listed "Talbothäuser" buildings along Jülicher Strasse were extensively renovated between 2018 and 2018. The apartment sizes were adapted to today's requirements through extensive floor plan changes. In combination with the conversion of the attic floors, additional apartments of various sizes were created. All apartments were equipped to meet today's standards, insofar as this was permitted by the preservation order. There are now 61 apartments between 1 and 4 rooms available in the historic buildings, with a subsidy rate of around 80 %. Open spaces for the residents are provided by private open spaces in the form of terraces and balconies as well as the spacious and attractively designed gardens, which also allow access to the adjacent areas of Burggrafenstrasse

Behind the factory housing from the 1920s, new buildings with a total of 35 residential units have been built, which expand the range of apartments and enable barrier-free living. The apartment buildings along Burggrafenstrasse are staggered to the north of the existing estate. They were built in solid construction on a buried continuous underground parking level with a total of 46 parking spaces and 111 bicycle parking spaces.

The apartment buildings are organized as two- or three-storey buildings with a central staircase and elevator. Each apartment has a spacious outdoor area in the form of a terrace, balcony, loggia or roof terrace. 21 residential units are built as publicly subsidized apartments, 14 are privately financed. All apartments are barrier-free. The apartment sizes vary between 46 m² and 121 m² of living space.

One building has a wheelchair-accessible apartment on the first floor. Another building houses a large day care center for 9 children under the age of 3 with an adjoining outdoor area.

A dedicated combined heat and power plant for the entire residential complex also points the way to a sustainable future in terms of energy. A further 44 residential units are nearing completion, extending the quarter to the south of Burggrafenstrasse. You can find more information on this under Current development projects, Burggrafenstrasse Süd.

In the immediate vicinity of Rothe Erde station, the family-friendly and intergenerational residential quarter "Guter Freund" has been built on a former military wasteland on Freunder Weg, Eisenbahnweg and An der Birk.

The quarter comprises a total of 248 apartments on a plot of around 15,500 square meters. 183 apartments, or more than 70 %, are publicly subsidized. The privately financed apartments correspond to a medium price segment.

A rent and occupancy commitment was secured for 25 years. The basic rent for the publicly subsidized residential units is €6.70.
The units are spread across a total of 17 buildings, the apartments have 2 to 4 rooms and a living space of 45 to 120 square meters. All apartments are barrier-free, have a modern layout and are designed with plenty of natural light. This includes, for example, level-access showers, balconies without thresholds and open-plan kitchens. Each apartment also has a separate cellar room, and the majority of apartments also have a storage room within the apartment.

With perfect connections to the bus and rail network, the district has a daycare center, a daycare center for senior citizens and other services to promote the community. For example, tenants are offered hobby cellars at low all-inclusive rents. All rooms are equipped with at least one power socket and most have natural light. The district also has a communal apartment on the first floor, which is not rented out and can be booked by residents for guests or celebrations.

A central wood pellet heating system supplies the apartments with underfloor heating and independent temperature control in all rooms.
There is a station for car and bike sharing to ensure mobility.

The district's pioneering role in high-quality subsidized housing has been recognized nationwide and even internationally. In 2016, the concept won the polis award in the "Urban land recycling" category. This was followed by the immobilienmanager Award and the B24 Brownfield Award 2020. The quarter also won the FIABCI Prix d'Excellence Germany in bronze and was nominated for the ULI Europe Award for Excellence. Last year, the residential quarter was also among the top 3 for the Real Estate Social Impact Investing Award.