Aachen's housing market remains very tight despite new records in housing subsidies. High demand meets limited supply - with noticeable consequences for many people looking for housing in Aachen.

On Wednesday, February 4, at the invitation of Lord Mayor Dr. Michael Ziemons and the Alderman for Housing, Social Affairs and Economy, Thomas Hissel, stakeholders from the housing industry came together with experts from the city administration at Aachen City Hall for the first Aachen Housing Summit. "The issue of affordable housing will be the social issue of the coming years. That's why it was important for us as the city of Aachen to take a bold step forward. We want to reposition ourselves as an administration and become even more of an enabling authority. We really want to turn on the building turbo," says Michael Ziemons: "We need around 7,000 residential units in the next 15 years. In this way, we are creating reliable framework conditions so that affordable housing for Aachen grows rapidly."

In the council chamber of Aachen's town hall, short presentations from the administration explained the potential, highlighted existing processes and identified opportunities for optimization in order to enable faster housing construction. The potential and opportunities of the "Bauturbo" were also presented and discussed. Alderman Thomas Hissel presented the city's starting points for speeding up housing construction in Aachen: "The pressure to act on Aachen's housing market is high. It is therefore crucial that the administration and the housing industry assume joint responsibility and pull together. The housing summit marks an important start to speeding up processes, making consistent use of existing potential and advancing housing construction in Aachen reliably and on a larger scale. With our urban potential areas and the instruments of the housing construction turbo, we are creating the conditions to turn good ideas into concrete living space more quickly."

Frauke Burgdorff, Deputy Mayor for Urban Development, Construction and Mobility, adds: "Together with our highly motivated planners and the building inspectorate, we will ensure that we obtain planning permission quickly." 

Challenges and opportunities for Aachen's housing market

In the subsequent discussion, the theoretical approaches, plans and processes were supplemented and discussed with experience and tips from practical work in the construction industry. To this end, the city administration presented selected areas of urban potential. Together, challenges and opportunities for Aachen's housing market were identified and further steps in future cooperation were discussed. Where is the greatest need for action, where can processes be streamlined and how can projects be implemented more quickly?

The representatives of the housing industry presented their own plans and project ideas in a "gallery walk". Specifically, they talked about 3,000 residential units that could be realized in the coming years. 

A common signal and goal

Following the event, the housing industry also praised the open and constructive exchange: "The housing industry in Aachen has considerable opportunities to create demand-oriented living space for Aachen. The players in the housing market are counting on existing obstacles being identified and consistently removed together with the city administration," said Thomas Hübner, CEO of gewoge AG. Jens Kreiterling, CEO of Landmarken AG, and Nisse Nessler from Nessler Projektidee GmbH agreed in unison on behalf of around 40 participants.

And the next summit is already being considered: A further exchange is firmly planned, at which the topics now discussed will be analyzed and further steps initiated. 

Special budget of the country

There is also a tailwind from the state and federal government: the special budget of EUR 1.5 billion for public housing promotion in NRW is a strong signal for new and existing buildings. This means that a total of 12 billion euros will be available in NRW between 2023 and 2027. At the same time, the so-called "housing construction turbo" became legally binding at federal level to accelerate and simplify housing construction in the municipalities.

Overall, this has created important foundations for municipal action. In Aachen, too, these improved framework conditions are now being used to actively shape and implement the policy.