In recent years, commercial property developers have increasingly discovered single-family house and garden settlement areas as a business area. The massive multi-storey buildings they erected there annoyed neighbors and pissed off private individuals looking for land. Complaints de facto from the entire city area trickled into the town hall. But legally there was no way to counter the uncompromising requirements of the building regulations, which were exhausted to the last centimeter. In this way, multi-family houses with six to seven apartments could be built, which would take out the light, for example, for smaller houses.
From a legal point of view, the buildings are class 1, i.e. buildings up to a height of nine meters plus the roof. This is where the city wants to start with its amendment to the building regulations and restrict massive cubatures, announced Councilor for Housing Kathrin Gaal (SPÖ): Roof, but also about the distance rules to the neighbors. The aim of this small amendment to building law is to preserve and protect this very character of these settlement areas. “
Vienna building regulations are tightened
Less high, less wide and with more distance to the neighbor. This is what the Viennese building regulations will prescribe in future in areas with single-family houses. Housing associations have repeatedly bought vacant lots and used every spot for multi-storey buildings.
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More delicate, smaller and further away
Anyone who owns a plot of land can build a third of it, but a maximum of 470 square meters. It’s very big for a single-family house, so it rarely happens, explained Bernhard Gutternigh of the building police. But apartment buildings with this quadrature are more common. That is why this opportunity is gladly used, even if the new house is then significantly larger than the neighborhood. That is why in the future you should only be allowed to build a maximum of 350 square meters, i.e. 120 square meters less.
Buildings of construction class 1 may have a maximum height of nine meters. The building height is measured from the ground to the point where the roof starts. The roof height is measured again separately. However, there is a kind of “allowance” that does not count towards building or roof height: the gable area. The gable area is not included up to an area of 50 square meters. This can make the house even higher. This is why this “allowance” is soon to be reduced to 25 square meters.
But the roof or ridge height is also restricted. It is currently a maximum of 7.5 meters. This should be 4.5 meters. This is roughly equivalent to a floor that cannot be built. Here, however, there should be exceptions for “justified individual cases”.
Harsher penalties for construction offenders
The amendment should also bring higher penalties for building sins. Anyone who tears down Wilhelminian style houses for new buildings, for example, should pay twice as much fine as before, namely 200,000 euros. Such houses from the Wilhelminian era and the time before the Second World War can be found in numerous places in Vienna. Because of their often ornate facades, they must not be demolished. Many owners do it anyway and accept the penalty. Old buildings have room heights of up to 3.5 meters. Compared to the current standard of 2.5 meters, according to Gutternigh, three to four floors are “lost” per old building.
The previously 100,000 euros maximum fine for demolition would quickly be offset by the larger number of tenants in a new building. That is why the maximum fine for the unauthorized demolition of old buildings will soon be doubled to 200,000 euros. In addition, a minimum fine of 20,000 euros will be introduced. The aim is to preserve buildings that characterize the cityscape and are “of particular public interest”. The amendment to the building regulations will be subject to a public appraisal in the next few weeks. It is to be adopted on November 25th and thus put into effect.
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