Housing: is the Berlin idea pie in the sky?
Recently, residents of Berlin voted to exclude big landlords and expropriate their properties into public hands. Benjamin Shingler asks here whether Montreal should do the same. But this is just headline fodder. If you read closer, you’ll see that the Berlin vote was not binding, and it’s a sure thing that this city doesn’t have the power to do anything like that. Our laws are structured to give preponderant power to private ownership and it would take a massive revolution to change that.
thomas 10:23 on 2021-10-07 Permalink
Not sure what the Berlin initiative would accomplish other than locking in rents for the lucky 200,000 currently in possession of effected apartments. I would think a better use of public funds would be to build new housing and increase the supply.
thomas 12:12 on 2021-10-07 Permalink
BTW the cost of expropriation set forth in the Berlin referendum would be around $50 billion USD.
Kate 15:48 on 2021-10-07 Permalink
See, that’s where you need to institute a decree and simply seize the properties.
SMD 16:51 on 2021-10-07 Permalink
The referendum led directly to the city of Berlin buying 14,750 apartments from two large corporate landlords for 2.46 billion euros ($3.56 billion CAD) this fall. Power concedes nothing without a counter power.
ant6n 05:33 on 2021-10-08 Permalink
I was able to participate in that vote, and view it more like a signal to politics rather than an actual referendum on collectivization. People are not happy with the housing situation. BTW, most of that housing used to be public and was flogged in the 90ies cuz capitalism won.
A couple years back there was a referendum to keep Tegel airport (inside city West) open instead of closing it when the new airport opens a bit south east of berlin. Eventually the Senate came back saying “not possible” and that was that.