New remodelling culture should make things easier

At the beginning of November, the German government adopted a new funding programme for affordable housing. The package of measures supplements the 14-point plan presented in September 2023. Significant relief and new opportunities for property buyers are now emerging in the renovation and extension of existing buildings.

The future of construction lies in the remodelling of existing buildings. Reiner Nagel, Chairman of the Board of the Federal Foundation of Baukultur, is convinced of this. He cites various hurdles that need to be overcome when remodelling: Up to now, the same legal requirements have applied to remodelling as to new construction. This means that an existing building has to be adapted to regulations that only came into force after its construction. This is naturally associated with difficulties. By waiving the parking space requirement for future conversions and extensions, a further obstacle to the renovation and extension of existing buildings has now been removed.

The building culture report "New conversion culture" identifies the biggest obstacles to conversion. In addition to the parking space regulations, these include the heating standards. The latter were already regulated by the German government in September with the suspension of the EH40 new-build standard. Other issues include noise protection, accessibility, clearance areas and fire protection. The simplification of the change of use of attics for residential purposes and the conversion of commercial to residential properties as well as the "Young buys old" subsidy programme will further facilitate conversion projects.

At the same time, the guidelines for building type E open up new room for manoeuvre. In future, only the technical building regulations and building law standards should serve as a binding basis for construction measures. DIN standards, on the other hand, should only be agreed as a supplement. The next step would be to transfer this requirement to the "new remodelling culture". The Federal Chamber of Architects has already drawn up initial proposals for what a model building code for existing buildings could look like and submitted them to the Ministry of Construction in spring 2023.

With the facilitations introduced for conversions, a turnaround towards the urgently needed conversion culture is emerging for the first time.

(Photo: © Bundesstiftung Baukultur, Reiner Nagel, Potsdam, 2023)