Infill management in Berlin

The cadastral register of vacant building plots in Berlin in the Internet

Abstract

Under the heading “Infill Management”, Berlin now details inner-city building land on the Internet. Since July 2002, information on over 800 publicly and privately owned development sites, covering a total of some 200 hectares, has been available worldwide in interactive form at one single website. A project group set up at the Senate Department of Urban Development has taken on responsibility for the organisational, legal and technical groundwork and for implementing this instrument — referred to as “BLM” (Baulückenmanagement). What has become apparent is that viable solutions are possible, even within a complex administrative structure, if the focus is placed on achieving win-win solutions. In order to ensure that BLM continues in the future to find acceptance among users, it needs to be subjected to continuous evaluation. Moreover, everyone involved in this procedure must receive the necessary training. At a time of a general falling-off in demand for apartment-block construction, the underlying intention is to increase market transparency and to raise interest in Berlin as a place to locate to. An additional purpose of this approach is to support the sale of publicly owned real estate. The cadastral register of building land — introduced in 1998 in the Federal Building Code as an instrument of planning — represents one component of the inner-city development strategy currently being pursued in Berlin. The effective management of building land can, however, only be achieved by joining up housing, business, land and financial policies.