Federal government extends rent brake and makes improvements

adminonJuly 10, 2023July 8, 2023Leave a Comment

Federal government extends rent brake and makes improvements

The rent brake is extended – and with stricter rules. The federal cabinet decided that the regulation will apply for another five years, until 2025. In addition, tenants are to be reimbursed for overpayments of rent for up to two and a half years in the future.

"With the extension and tightening of the rent brake we will further steam the dynamic of the rent development until 2025", promised justice minister christine lambrecht (SPD). The changes still require the approval of the german parliament.

The price brake regulates the rent level after a move in a popular area: as a rule, the landlord may then only charge ten percent more than the local comparable rent. According to surveys by the tenants’ association, however, many landlords do not comply – partly because they do not have to fear any penalties. Previously, they did not have to pay back the overpayment, but only had to adjust the rent from the time the tenant issued a rebuke.

"Housing must remain affordable, regardless of whether it is rented or owned," lambrecht emphasized. That’s why the ancillary costs of buying houses and owner-occupied apartments should also be reduced. If the seller has hired a broker, he should pay him himself in the future, at least half of the time. The buyer must also pay his share only after the seller has proven his payment. Until now, the buyer has usually paid the entire brokerage costs. The reform will significantly reduce the cost of home ownership, said lambrecht. "This will make it easier for families to move into their own homes and build up future-proof retirement provisions."

For the tenants’ association, the changes do not go far enough. "In order to make the rent brake really effective and to stop rent gouging when apartments are re-rented, further corrections are needed," demanded managing director ulrich ropertz. The price brake must apply nationwide – not just in areas with a tight housing market. For example, saarland, saxony and saxony-anhalt had not passed any ordinance at all, and schleswig-holstein wanted to abolish its ordinance again. Exceptions also had to be eliminated. At present, for example, the landlord can demand more money if the previous tenant has already paid a higher rent.

The owners’ association haus und grund also criticized the tightening – but for a different reason. The rent cap is not suitable for securing affordable rents in conurbations and should therefore be abolished, explained president kai warnecke. With the verlangerung the policy fails. "If the federal government cares about a healthy rental housing market, it must encourage private small-scale landlords," he demanded.

The mayor of hetzles, franz schmidtlein (), has called for water conservation in the local gazette. The reason: due to the drought, the local spring only produces 2.8 liters per second. Schmidtlein expects that even after abundant rainfall, it will take three to four weeks for the spring to return to its normal water supply.

He calls it the dogger spring. With this, he also mentioned the geological cause, why hetzles and also other places in a similar position in front of the jura are currently in water shortage, if they are not connected to a water extraction from other rock layers.

In this country, jura dogger is the name for the middle rock layer of the jura, from which mountains such as the walberla and the hetzles are built up.

The lowest is a shale called lias, then a layer of clay separates it from the dogger, a sandstone. On top sits the malm, the typical weibe lime.

He, too, is separated by an impermeable layer of clay.

The rock layers can be thought of as a cake made of different layers of dough with a separating layer of cream in between. The "dough layers are the deposits of primeval seas from different epochs of the earth’s history.

The "torte central europe was ripped open in the middle by the rhine rift valley and the strata became slanting with the edges. The rheingraben is the best known part of the rough european rift zone between marseille and lake mjosa in norway.

Exactly at the fub of such a stratification stage lies hetzles. At the "open" seepage water escapes from the edges of the separating layers; in geology, this is referred to as stratum springs.

Well known in our region are the hunger wells. These are periodic, often quite strong springs on high of the boundary layer under the white limestone and dolomite rock. They bubble up especially in spring after the snow melts, because limestone is a particularly water-permeable rock, just think of the fissures and hollows in french switzerland.

Water permeability was also the reason why, until a few decades ago, rainwater had to be collected in open cisterns called hullen in the villages on the alb plateau. Drinking water had to be carried up from springs in the valley or pumped up with simple mechanisms.

These springs at the fub of the dogger layer are on average considerably weaker, but flow more continuously. This is due to the soft, rather fine-pored sandstone. It takes much longer for the surface water to penetrate it. That is why schmidtlein spoke of the three to four weeks needed for the debris to recover, based on local experience.

On a hike from the village of hetzles to the mountain of the same name, one can easily follow the sequence of strata through the different vegetation. Starting point is the coal plate. The name comes from the dark rock, the liasschiefer, which emerges in a hollow way towards the mountain.

It is said to contain oil. Today, oil extraction is implemented in the USA by means of the so-called fracking.

The hiker recognizes the sandstone layer of the dogger especially in spring through the dense stand of barlauch in the sparse deciduous forest. One tracks, here the land is wet due to the stratified springs.

On this layer of rock, the people of hetzles planted oak trees, whose shoots they cut back every year to produce tanbark. The head oaks along the path are now a natural monument and the home of rare oats that live in the wood.

Shortly before you reach the edge of the hetzle, you have the feeling of walking through a pile of gravel. It does not carry; here loose limestone lies in flat plates. The plant world has changed noticeably. Hairy leaves, a protection against desiccation, stand out. And at its bleeding time, various lime-loving orchid species.

Help from the neighbor

To protect against water shortages, hetzles has joined the neighboring leithenberg group. However, hetzles can only help out to a limited extent with coarser quantities of water, because it has also reached the limits of its extraction quantities. But for completely different reasons.

The leithenberg group obtains its water from deep wells in the second groundwater level, in contrast to the city of forchheim, which obtains its drinking water from shallow wells in the zweng. It taps in the first groundwater level to some extent the subterranean wiesent. Only a few meters below the earth’s surface, the water that has penetrated the highly permeable limestone layer in the center of the french-speaking part of switzerland flows in abundance.

Deep wells offer more security against water contamination because the surface water takes much longer to pass through the subsurface and is thus filtered for a longer time. The wells are located in the area around kersbach and effeltrich, in the hills before the actual alpine stage, the core of which belongs to the same rock strata as the area west of the regnitz river.

Arsenic causes problems

The stone there is called castle sandstone. Its natural components include arsenic inclusions. And it is precisely this toxic mineral that keeps causing problems in water extraction, because the more water is pumped, the more it is washed out. As a result, fountains had to be shut down again and again or the withdrawal rate curtailed because the concentration exceeded limits.

A hurdle has been taken: the change in the land use plan for the "edelgraben" business park in lonnerstadt is in dry cloth after the fifth interpretation. At the meeting, a resolution was passed that will – so the council and the administration hope – bring the never-ending story to an end.
Now it is a question of drawing up a development plan for the new "edelgraben 2" commercial area to be set up. "The process is already underway, engineer georg schreiber from the hochstadt office of maier reported at the meeting. Not to be confused with the opposite "edelgraben 1", for which there is already a development plan from 2006. For economic reasons, this has not yet been realized. Even now, no one knows if and when this will happen.
Mayor stefan himpel () had invited businesses interested in locating in the area to the west of lonnerstadt to the meeting. 10,000 square meters of the 3.8-hectare site are to be made available to the municipality for companies wishing to locate there. 20,000 square meters remain in the hands of herbert krafft. The local entrepreneur, who wants to build three halls on his flat, has, according to his own words, "also initiated the whole thing".
As mayor himpel announced, four companies already established in the municipality have made concrete commitments to purchase commercial sites. "They want to grow and move away with their company if they don't get a plot of land", third mayor johann hops (CSU/burgerblock) added. Mayor himpel is not least concerned with creating new jobs.

Access not yet optimal

However, the development of the commercial area is possible only from the south – in extension of the main road. For an access road from the district road ERH 18 the district administration office demanded a left turn lane, the planner explained. This solution is unsatisfactory for some rates. The district should rather "think about a holistic solution in the intersection area", demanded gerrit hoppe ().
The model of a heat supply by a block heat and power plant for the industrial area was presented by graduate engineer friedrich schafer. According to schafer, the main reason for this is the CO2 savings of 300 to 350 tons per year. Woodchips save the environment and resources, and the money stays in the region. The near-warmth also brings advantages for the companies willing to settle in the town. No need for boilers or fireplaces and no dirt in the house. Since the price of oil is expected to rise in the future, the wood-fired power plant is a cost-effective source of heat. As schafer explained, due to the favorable primary energy factor, there are also much lower requirements for the construction of the buildings. At the same time, however, the engineer made it clear that the model would only work if a connection obligation was imposed.
Herbert krafft thinks of the local heating network as a "citizens' project. The developers then had the opportunity to join the operating company. He also showed the possibilities of the demand. He offered the possibility of visiting a similar plant to the councils.

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