Friday, 8 August
Greens accuse Berlin Senate of using Tempelhof housing debate as a distraction
The battle over Tempelhofer Feld is back – at least, according to the Senate. But Werner Graf, head of the Greens in Berlin’s parliament, isn’t buying it. He calls the renewed discussion about building on the former airport “nothing but a distraction” from the CDU-SPD coalition’s failure to deliver on actual housing projects.
“Berlin doesn’t have a land problem, it has an implementation problem,” Graf told the German Press Agency, citing delays at the Schumacherquartier in Tegel, Molkenmarkt in Mitte and Güterbahnhof Köpenick. “If CDU and SPD focused on getting those built, we’d achieve a lot more than wasting time and money debating Tempelhofer Feld.”
Even if apartments were built on Tempelhofer Feld, Graf says, that at €25 to €30 per square metre, they wouldn’t be affordable. The 2014 referendum banning construction still stands, and the Greens expect the Senate “to stop trampling on the will of the people.”
For Graf, the airfield’s value lies elsewhere: sport, kite-surfing, theatre classes, biodiversity, and cooling the city after hot days. He’d also like more major concerts there, citing the Ärzte gig as “fantastic and climate neutral.” He added, if Berlin doesn’t sort out its venue problem soon, it will keep missing out on acts like Taylor Swift and Adele.
