It is unconstitutional because it treats people unequally. New people will not find any rentable properties, and will have to stay in hotels paying 10x more.
No, it’s unconstitutional because the Berlin government was passing a law which conflicted with federal law (BGB) which regulates rents in Germany.
Also, the Berlin government was retroactively changing (rent) contracts which normally invalidates any contract as this will always put one contract party at an unprecedented disadvantage.
Berlin with its Red-Red-Green government is hardly a city governed by xenophobia. OTOH, the German left is even more pro-immigration and pro-multiculturalism than an average European leftist party.
This law was probably meant against big housing corporations like Deutsches Wohnen, which bought a lot of the housing stock during previous privatizations, and so have some power on the housing market.
IMHO Berlin (just like Prague) needs to lower bureaucratic hurdles on new construction, but maybe the locals do not want that. There was a chance to turn the former Tempelhof airfield into a new neighbourhood, but a local ballot turned it down.
Tempelhoferfeld is the best park in Berlin. Parks provide value too. They should build up instead of sprawling like the most terrible cities in the world do.
> They should build up instead of sprawling like the most terrible cities in the world do
When I was in Berlin, it seemed to me people in Berlin wanted the impossible combination:
- Continue to afford to live in the city (ergo more housing in the city)
- No sprawl to keep the car traffic down (ergo still more pressure on housing in the city)
- Keeping the green spaces (so no denser housing)
- No higher buildings, or God forbid, high-risers (so no denser housing)
Or better said, you would find people, who are dead set against high-risers and would tolerate building on Tempelhofer Feld, or who are dead set against using spaces within the city (Tempelholfer Feld), but would probably tolerate higher buildings.
> It is unconstitutional because it treats people unequally.
Wrong, it was declared unconstitutional because only the federal government is allowed to pass such a measure. Our federal construction minister "Voll-Horst" Seehofer is free to regulate rents any time he wants, but unfortunately all he has been doing for the last four years is to deny systemic issues in police all day.
> New people will not find any rentable properties, and will have to stay in hotels paying 10x more.
So what? Without rent control poor people are forced out of the homes they grew up in, this is certainly worse than tech hipsters having to pay for hotels.
I don't follow you. Why limiting the prices for renting, will be less rentable properties, the point of this is to make rentable properties have a price where people can rent a property to live.
That is a horrible argument, because the same can be said for land ownership. Isn't it unfair that when I move somewhere, I discover that all the land in that area is already owned by someone else. Why should some old history entitle someone to exclusive ownership of any piece of land, and the ability to charge arbitrary rents for it?
The fact of the matter is, first movers have all sorts of unfair advantages over latecomers, many of them from luck, or from circumstances of birth - and I doubt you are seeking to overturn all of them.
Young people become old people, serfs don't become feudal lords.
Foreigners can naturalize (and most of them have the freedom to weigh the costs of paying into systems they don't benefit from, and consider whether or not immigrating is worth it.)
AirBnB is part of the problem btw. There are at least 4 fulltime AirBnB flats on my building floor (that I'm aware of). I'm assuming it's AirBnB because there's a very high "fluctuation" of new people in those flats (few days to 2 or 3 weeks). Imagine if all those AirBnBs would be available for longterm renting ;)
Since 2014 you need to have an official permission to use a flat for AirBnb. If you suspect these are illegally rented out, you can report them to the Berlin government here:
It is like saying refugees are part of the problem, because they are taking flats from the market. People who rent Airbnb also have a right to be in Berlin.
And this policy is pushing more flats from normal market into airbnbs.
Also, the Berlin government was retroactively changing (rent) contracts which normally invalidates any contract as this will always put one contract party at an unprecedented disadvantage.