Vienna in demolition fever: Secret old building list causes excitement!

Vienna in demolition fever: Secret old building list causes excitement!

In Vienna it is bubbling: the city hovers over a controversial topic that makes you take notice. A secret list of old buildings that are to be demolished ensures violent debates. Profile reports that Prack, a member of the Vienna municipal council, had already planned a parliamentary request to the SPÖ residential city councilor Kathrin Gaál at the beginning of 2024. The aim was to experience addresses of the demolition houses. But the information was missing. Gaál had answered a similar request for 2022, but refused in 2023 due to the data protection of the homeowners.

The city of Vienna only announced the number of houses concerned, but refused to publish the exact addresses. This decision was justified with the fear that the publication of the addresses could provoke home occupations and endanger public security. An example from the past shows how seriously the city takes this concerns: in 2014 a house line -up had to be cleared with a large police contingent.

a court ruling on the website of the right to information

But there are also bright spots in this jungle of bureaucracy and ownership interests. The Vienna Administrative Court decided that the right to information was higher than the private sector interests of the homeowners. The city was thus obliged to disclose the addresses. Surprisingly, the city pulled the procedure in length and raised revision at the Administrative Court (VwGH), which at the end of April, only two days after the Vienna election, rejected the revision. Prack was able to see the coveted addresses and plan to drive them off to check possible grievances.

a vicious circle of decay and rent

It is no secret that owners often let old houses expire in order to artificially increase the renovation costs and justify a demolition. Prack warned of this expiry calculation, which not only endangers the cityscape, but also leads to higher rental prices. An example provided Radetzkystrasse 24–28, where a building was torn down from 2018 while tenants were still alive.

The increase in housing prices and the associated displacement are alarming. While the absolute number of apartments in Vienna is increasing, the range of regulated rents is reduced. Housing expert Michael Klien sees the developments an "escape from the Rentrecht Act" among owners of old buildings. This escape is favored by the high prices: if an average of 573,000 euros were paid for an old building apartment building in 2000, it was already 3.5 million euros-an increase of over 500 percent, as the Chamber of Labor:

tenant rights in focus

The rights of the tenants are often undermined in this context. According to the [Federal Chancellery there are different areas of application of the tenancy law (MRG) in Austria, which regulate the ratio of tenants and landlords. Whether a tenancy falls below the full application area, the partial application area or outside the MRG has a direct impact on rent limits and protection against dismissal.

The Chamber of Employees calls for a modern, transparent tenancy law and better protection for the tenants in view of the precarious situation: inside, especially for renovations. "It is time to finally counter -controlled here," explains a spokeswoman for AK Vienna and appeals to politics, tenants: Inside, no longer exposing the landlord's arbitrariness.

The discussion about demolition houses is therefore not just an issue for real estate investors and urban planners; She affects every Viennese and Viennese directly who lives in the old walls of the city. From these aspects, the development in the federal capital remains exciting.