How the construction minister is increasing her fan base despite the housing misery
Construction Minister Klara Geywitz (left) and Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck have to cooperate, but do not agree on everything
Source: AFP/JOHN MACDOUGALL
In the real estate industry, Minister of Construction Geywitz is gaining approval because she simplifies some regulations. But also because she distances herself from Federal Minister of Economics Habeck – and openly expresses doubts about green certainties.
AWhen Federal Minister Klara Geywitz (SPD) took the stage at a construction conference in Berlin last Thursday, she put the speech manuscript aside. “My employees always prepare it so well, but they already know it,” she says – and starts a free lecture with a headset, not holed up behind a lectern, but with a lot of ups and downs and the possibilities that both the office and also allow the theatrical passion.
Geywitz speaks of state subsidieswhich cannot be endlessly expanded, from serial construction methods and digital building applications, from DIN standards and climate protection, and has around 400 spectators from the construction and real estate industry quickly on her side.
“I have to admit: I’ve become a real fan,” says a real estate manager from North Rhine-Westphalia, quietly, behind closed doors. In view of ever stricter efficiency regulations from Brussels and heating rules from the Ministry of Economics, the industry is now happy that someone is just taking care of the construction.
“I’m a real fan now”
When she started in the Federal Cabinet a year and a half ago, the 47-year-old Minister of Construction was not exactly someone who followed such stage performances. In the meantime, however, Geywitz has swam free, after all the trouble involved in rebuilding a ministry, with a comparatively small budget and in constant competition with the powerful Ministry of Economic Affairs, which is still responsible for building renovation and subsidy programs in existing buildings.
This week, Geywitz even noticeably distanced himself from his cabinet colleague Robert Habeck (Greens). Also at an industry conference, this time on the stage of Berlin’s Friedrichstadtpalast, she said: “I’m not convinced that we have to do everything we can to make every single building as efficient as possible.”
In doing so, she opposes the paradigm of the Greens, according to which ideally everything should happen at the same time: optimal insulation and consumption reduction on the one hand and conversion of the heat supply on the other. This is expensive and overwhelms many owners. “From that efficiency house standard 55 it starts to get economically difficult,” said Geywitz.
The federal government is still a long way from the goal it has set itself of 400,000 new apartments per year. Geywitz emphasizes at every opportunity that the federal states will have to pay the “record sum” of 14.5 billion euros for social housing is available. Apparently that’s not enough, especially in privately financed housing construction, orders are declining.
But the industry cannot count on more money: “The state cannot guarantee the construction industry a basic income with subsidies,” says Geywitz. Instead, simplifications should help.
For example, with the noise regulations for new construction areas. By the end of the year, Geywitz promises, she wants to have reached an agreement with the environmental department on easing commercial noise in residential areas. That sounds like a special case, but it is an obstacle that is often lamented by the industry.
The digital building application is now actually becoming a reality. So far, applications have been submitted in writing almost everywhere. The files often circulate between the departments for months.
This week, Geywitz, together with Christianpegel (SPD), Minister of the Interior, Construction and Digitization of the federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, presented the completion of a pilot project: In principle, every municipality can now introduce a digital process in which everyone involved can work on the same project in parallel .
That saves time. According to the ministry, up to 60 percent of all building authorities could be there by the end of the year. However, the federal states must participate. Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Hesse and Thuringia are developing their own systems. And in some building authorities there is likely to be resistance to the digital file.
The numerous technical regulations and standards in the construction industry are often lamented. But these, emphasizes the minister, are invented by the economy itself in its own control process.
And in the end, the states and municipalities are responsible for the construction itself. They have to unify building codes, release money and building land. The Federal Ministry can only provide the impetus with simplified regulations for land use planning. It turns out that there are limits to Geywitz. A better stage performance can do little to change that.