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Berlin's New Rent Cap Bill EXAMENSARBETE INOM SAMHÄLLSBYGGNAD, AVANCERAD NIVÅ, 30 HP STOCKHOLM, SVERIGE 2021 BERLIN’S NEW RENT CAP BILL A CONTROVERSY DIVIDING THE CITY? LISA HUESMANN KTH SKOLAN FÖR ARKITEKTUR OCH SAMHÄLLSBYGGNAD BERLIN’S NEW RENT CAP BILL – A CONTROVERSY DIVIDING THE CITY? Author: Lisa Huesmann Supervisor: Jonathan Metzger Examiner: Maria Håkansson Degree Project in Urban and Regional Planning (AG212HT20) Master's Program Sustainable Urban Planning and Design KTH School of Architecture and Built Environment September 2020 ABSTRACT Urbanisation and growing populations are causing a lack of housing in many met- ropolitan areas such as Berlin, Germany. Especially tenants of rental units are af- fected by rapidly increasing housing prices that exhaust a growing share of their income. With a large proportion of its population living in rental units, increasing housing prices are a prominent challenge in Germany’s capital. To approach this issue, the parliament of the city state of Berlin has passed a rent cap bill in Febru- ary 2020. It states that rent prices for units built before 2014 are not allowed to be increased for the next five years, including some exceptions. Further, rents are not allowed to be higher than the average rent level from June 2019. The rent cap bill is controversial and strongly discussed by many stakeholders. Since the hous- ing market is complex and includes many stakeholders with various opinions and motivations, this study aims to understand the different aspects of the controversy as it relates to this rent cap bill. By using Controversy Mapping by Venturini (2010, 2012), this work focuses on the investigation what stakeholder groups exist, which opinions and motivations they have, and if there is a common ground between them. As result, this study discloses actor-network constellations of Berlin’s rental housing market and untangles stakeholders’ opinions and motivations to enable a conversation. [2] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Jonathan Metzger, for his guidance and comments throughout the process of this project. Encouraging, fruitful feedback and suggestions were highly appreciated and of great support and motivation for my work. I would also like to convey my sincere thanks to my friends for their moral and practical support. Camilla Baier and Ellen Zouras for inspiring discus- sions; Rik Steenman for motivating climbing sessions; Sarah Weiser and Eva Katzer for always having my back, even from afar. A special appreciation goes to those who had the patience to read through my work and helped with their con- structive feedback. Last but certainly not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my parents and my sister who have been supporting me on this journey in any possible way. Their encouragements and love together with their care-packages have been incredible while writing my master thesis during a global pandemic. Lisa Huesmann Stockholm, September 2020 [3] TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .............................................................................................. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................. 3 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................... 5 LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................... 6 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 7 2. RESEARCH APPROACH.................................................................... 10 2.1. Research Design ...................................................................... 10 2.2. Case Study ............................................................................. 14 2.3. Actor-Network Theory and Controversy Mapping ........................... 15 2.4. Discourse Analysis .................................................................... 20 3. BACKGROUND .............................................................................. 22 3.1. The Concept Of Housing ............................................................ 22 3.2. Economic and Social Function of Housing ..................................... 23 3.3. Housing Policy ......................................................................... 26 3.4. City State of Berlin and its Housing Policy History .......................... 29 3.5. Case Description: Berlin’s New Rent Cap Bill ................................. 35 4. ANALYSIS .................................................................................... 40 4.1. From Statement to Literatures ................................................... 40 4.2. From Literature to Actors .......................................................... 46 4.3. From Actor to Network .............................................................. 49 4.4. From Network to Cosmoses ....................................................... 55 4.4.1. Values and Ideologies of Actors ............................................. 56 4.4.2. Overlaps and Contradictions ................................................. 60 4.5. From Cosmoses to Cosmopolitics ................................................ 62 5. DISCUSSION ................................................................................ 64 5.1. Uncertainties ........................................................................... 64 5.2. Outlook .................................................................................. 66 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS ................................................................. 68 REFERENCES ........................................................................................ 69 [4] LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Sketch embedded case study. Source: Own figure based on Yin, 2018. .......................................................................................................... 15 Figure 2. The five steps pf controversy mapping. Source: Venturini, 2010, pp. 266–267. ........................................................................................ 18 Figure 3. Current parliament of Berlin. Source: Own figure based on Abgeordnetenhaus Berlin, 2016. .............................................................. 30 Figure 4. Share of rental units in Berlin districts in 2018. Extrapolation of Census data 2011 calculated by Berlin’s senate administration for urban development and housing. Source: Own figure based on Investitionsbank Berlin, 2020, p. 44. ......................................................................................... 31 Figure 5. Comparison of developments in Berlin, calculations for the 2018 IBB Housing Market Report. Source: Investitionsbank Berlin, 2018, p. 7. ............. 32 Figure 6. Berlin’s sectors after WWII. Source: Neumann, n.d.. ..................... 33 Figure 7. Rent price median of offered apartments in Berlin in 2019. Source: Own figure based on: Investitionsbank Berlin, 2020, p. 68. .......................... 36 Figure 8. Timeline of Process of the new rent cap bill. Source: Own figure based on Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Wohnen, 2020b. .......... 37 Figure 9. New rent cap bill summary. Source: Own figure based on: Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Wohnen, 2020a. ....................... 39 Figure 10. Protests against the bill in Berlin 9th December 2019. Signs reading for example “Rent cap does not build apartments” and “Houses need roofs, not caps”. Source: Haus & Grund Berlin, 2019a. .............................................. 41 Figure 11. Overview of claims of statement area 1. Source: Own figure. ....... 43 Figure 12. Overview of claims of statement area 2. Source: Own figure. ....... 45 Figure 13. Overview of claims of statement area 3. Source: Own figure. ....... 46 Figure 14. Senate and opposition of Berlin’s parliament. Source: Own figure. 49 Figure 15. Network with unweighted links. Source: Own figure. ................... 51 Figure 16. Map with weighted links. Source: Own figure. ............................ 53 Figure 17. Connections and actions in the Network. Source: Own figure. ....... 54 [5] LIST OF TABLES Table 1. List of actors and their roles. ...................................................... 11 Table 2. Characteristics of a controversy and its application to the new bill. ... 20 Table 3. Figure of maximum rent prices per square meter depending on year of construction and kind of heating facility. Source: Extract from MietenWoG Bln, 2020, p. 51. ......................................................................................... 38 Table 4. Statement areas about Berlin’s new rent cap bill and examples for directly connected literature. ................................................................... 42 Table 5. List of actors, their roles, and the statement areas they support. ...... 47 Table 6. Overview actor’s connections in network. ..................................... 52 Table 7. Actors and their ideologies, motivations for their standpoint, and bigger vision outside of the Controversy. ............................................................ 61 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ANT Actor-Network Theory Ger German GDR German-Democratic Republic UN United Nations WPR “What is the problem represented to be?” approach Cover pictures: Carolin Timm, 07.08.2020, Berlin. [6] 1. INTRODUCTION Urbanisation is a global phenomenon. While in 2018, 55 percent of the world’s population lived in cities, predictions expect this share to grow to 68 percent by 2050 (United Nations, 2019). As the number of
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