In the study “The practice of municipal building land mobilization and land policy”, the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) examined how municipalities apply building law and land policy instruments, for example to counter housing shortages. The study is based on a representative survey of local authorities and findings from sixteen case study cities. This includes questions such as how scarce building land is or how many municipalities are still selling land at top prices. You can find out the answers to these and other questions in the study here.
In the study “The practice of municipal building land mobilization and land policy”, the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) examined how municipalities apply building law and land policy instruments, for example to counter housing shortages. The study is based on a representative survey of local authorities and findings from sixteen case study cities. These include questions such as how scarce building land is and how many municipalities are still selling land at top prices. You can find out the answers to these and other questions in the study here.
In many places, markets are tight and there is a high demand for affordable housing. So how do cities mobilize building land? First of all, an active municipal land policy is needed. The new Difu study was funded by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR) and has now been able to close gaps in knowledge. Until now, there has been no current nationwide overview of the application of land policy and building law instruments in municipalities. The combination of empirical data and reports from local application practice now enables a look behind the scenes – into the “engine room” of planning, from which new residential construction is generated.
The Difu study shows that municipalities are increasingly using instruments from urban development and land policy. The majority of municipalities use municipal real estate policy as an instrument for urban and housing development. In doing so, they often buy land on an interim acquisition basis or use long-term land reserves. They often allocate their own municipal land according to qualitative specifications and concepts. Over forty percent of municipalities have a building land strategy or a building land resolution, for example the “cooperative building land model”. This is a binding regulation for the creation of building rights on private land.
According to the local authorities, residential construction mainly takes place in inner-city development. Cities have to make considerable efforts to generate building rights. Here is an example: from 2016 to 2020, 282 municipalities adopted 2,674 development plans and thus created building rights for 180,250 apartments. In 2020, 1,990 development plans were in the process in 266 municipalities. This created building rights for 183,680 apartments. These results testify to an expansion of the municipalities’ activities in building land development.
The increase in urban planning instruments illustrates the pressure on cities to act. The municipalities are in favor of adapting the instruments. However, they do not consider it necessary for them to be fundamentally renewed.
There is a discrepancy in the financial aspect. Some municipalities are able to actively finance building land development due to good economic conditions. Others lack the financial resources. A lack of personnel capacity for building land development is also problematic. Local authorities would therefore like to see better equipped municipal budgets and greater support from the federal and state governments. Financial support for land purchases – including interim purchases – would be important. It would also be helpful if supportive framework conditions were created for the mobilization of undeveloped building plots.
In addition to affordable housing, cities need opportunities for businesses, daycare centers and schools as well as open spaces. This requires available land.
“The study shows that many cities have already begun to gain or regain options for shaping the future of their municipality through active land policy,” says Difu project manager Ricarda Pätzold. “This challenging task requires staying power, political stability, financial leeway, instrumental support, personnel skills and, last but not least, innovative developers.”
You can find the complete DiFu study here.
Some of the aspects covered in the study overlap with the topic of urban planning. You can read everything you need to know about this here.
