For the district committee (BA) Maxvorstadt hardly a meeting goes by in which there is no talk of allegedly reckless behavior by investors in the district. No wonder, the so-called gentrification has been rampant in this downtown district for decades, the politicians almost inevitably fall into the role of tenant rights activists, as it were by voter mandate. Building applications are regularly (mostly rightly) placed under suspicion of luxury renovation.
The local politicians also keep an eye on the misappropriation of living space, i.e. when rental apartments are used commercially or as holiday apartments or are not rented at all, i.e. are vacant. Two intergroup motions recently passed unanimously join a long tradition in which the BA fights against the excesses on the Maxvorstadt real estate market – and tries to hold the city administration accountable.
Application number one concerns the online registration platform for citizens who suspect misuse and want to report this to the city of Munich. The Maxvorstädter are now calling on the administration to improve this “misappropriation detector”. Above all, it is criticized that “the state capital does not give any feedback as to whether the misappropriation is being treated or stopped,” as stated in the application paper.
In addition, the body urges the affected district committees to be regularly informed about reported cases, also in closed meetings. “Since the reports are made by urban area, it should be easy to collectively reflect these back to the BA as information”, warn the local politicians from Maxvorstadt. You yourself have often asked the city about current misappropriations, “with moderate income”.
The BA also issued a similar rating to the written response from the responsible social department to an application dated August 2020. The committee had asked for information about misappropriations in the properties Barer Strasse 77, Schellingstrasse 25 and 27, Steinheilstrasse 1 and Türkenstrasse 50 and 66 – and is now asking for more specific explanations with a motion that contains more than a dozen questions. The BA puts the finger on the vague wording that vacancy is permissible if a property is “to” be converted or renovated – and what exactly it means that property developers have to implement their projects “quickly” or “immediately”.
Conversely, the BA requires an explanation as to why the city did not draw any conclusions from the fact that the owner of the complex at Türkenstrasse 66 / Schellingstrasse 25 and 27 created facts early on. He had had the stairwell, possibly relevant for monument protection, removed without consulting the authorities. This “creation of facts”, so it says in the paper, was “in no way investigated afterwards” and has no consequences for the owner.
The district committee is also investigating the property at Türkenstrasse 52/54. It has now gained notoriety for the fact that the value of the area has risen 370 percent since it was first sold in 2007. There, too, there is a “massive vacancy rate”, writes the local committee with a view to the letter from the administration. “The misappropriation is justified with the building measures that make living unreasonable.” Since neighboring buildings were also affected by the large building project, “but these obviously do not have any unreasonable conditions, this decision is incomprehensible”.
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