Cologne's housing construction: New control center should accelerate construction projects!

Cologne's housing construction: New control center should accelerate construction projects!

The housing shortage in Cologne reaches alarming dimensions! Mayor Henriette Reker has equipped the housing center (WBL) with new skills in order to counteract the growing living space requirement. Under the direction of Markus Greitemann, the WBL is now to act as a central coordination center in order to promote housing in the city more effectively. The administration informed the urban development committee about these decisive measures.

Franka Schinkel, who has headed the WBL since April, has ambitious plans. The 52-year-old emphasizes that her interdisciplinary expertise and that of her eight employees will be decisive in order to master the challenges in housing construction. A first step in this direction is the digitization of all housing projects with more than 50 residential units in the new tool "CProject". Around 50 to 60 projects are currently recorded, and the WBL is actively involved in most large -scale construction projects.

monthly meetings for more transparency

In order to promote the exchange between politics, administration and housing industry, monthly meetings of the WBL are now taking place. The first "Housing Project Conference" took place on October 30th and the response was consistently positive. Schinkel emphasizes that the restraint of the builders is a great obstacle due to increased material costs and bureaucratic hurdles. The WBL plans to offer comprehensive consultations at an early stage to shorten the procedural times and to ensure quick project processes.

Cologne faces a huge challenge: 66,000 apartments will be needed than in 2015 by 2029, but the new buildings are stagnating. Between 2017 and 2022 only around 2,500 apartments were completed annually, while an average of 3,100 were approved. Schinkel is optimistic that the new strategy of the WBL will steer the city in the right direction. On November 18, the revised concept will be presented in the "Sub -Committee of Living", and Schinkel is in exchange with similar areas in Berlin and Hamburg that observe similar problems.