Between rapidly rising rents and a tragic shortage of available apartments, the housing crisis in Berlin is in full blow. Ongoing developments throughout the city and on its outskirts are a tiny plaster on a gaping wound; the need for a lot more affordable housing is as urgent as ever. This is hardly controversial.
What is controversial is building this much-needed housing on Tempelhofer Feld, Berlin’s beloved open green space spanning approximately 300 hectares on site of the former THF airport, closed in 2008. In the summer, Berliners flock to the Feld to cycle, rollerskate, barbeque and do all sorts of other fun activities. A new initiative, ‘Home at Tempelhof Feld’, would like to see them also live there. This comes despite the fact that at last year’s Ideas Competition to determine the former airport’s future, 4 out of the 6 winning proposals envisioned no new construction (and citizens at the subsequent Dialogue Workshops also rejected it).
The architects involved in the new ‘Home at Tempelhofer Feld’ project would like to see up to 50,000 Berliners live in 21,400 apartments built on the Feld’s perimeter, outside the former taxiway encircling it. Although it’s still unclear who would own the new apartments, 30% of them would be reserved for social housing and all buildings would be erected in a style reminiscent of the Gründerzeit era, modelled after neighbouring Schillerkiez and Bergmannkiez. 10% of their space would be reserved for commercial activity and another 15% would be for public facilities like schools and daycare centres. All this development, officially proposed at a press conference yesterday by architects Hans Kollhoff and Tobias Nöfer along with enterpreneur Hamid Djadda, would shrink the size of the beloved Feld by a third.
In a recent poll commisioned by the Berlin Chamber of Industry and Commerce (IHK) and conducted by INSA (an organization with ties to the AfD), 59% of Berliners would support some kind of similar development of the Feld, in terms of the urgent need for more housing. Only one in four actively oppose it, and support for the construction appears to transcend party sentiment with supporters of all major political parties in favour of the proposed plan. This marks a significant change of attitude over the past decade; in the 2014 referendum, 64.3% of Berliners voted against any development of Tempelhofer Feld.
Political parties, however, remain divided on the issue. The Left and the Greens oppose it despite most of their voter base being in support, with the latter calling for advancing existing construction projects and the conversion of empty office space into apartments instead of bulldozing the field. The SPD is divided, while the CDU and AfD are in favour of the idea.
The issue is thus sure to be a focal point of the upcoming election, which will be crucial for deciding whether the ‘Home at Tempelhofer Feld’ project goes through. If it does, construction could start already in two years and be finished as early as in six – an undoubtedly ambitious deadline by Berlin standards.
