Archive: The Capital City of Berlin - Documentation

By far the greatest portion of the surface area needed for the main urban functions was within the decree of the Federation, the State of Berlin and several Federal and Provincial institutions the participation of which in could be assumed in the development measure - together with more than 90 percent of the entire development area.

In addition, there are about 240 private property owners. Their interests are not always in harmony with the goals of the development measure. But the same is true even in such rare cases: the ground rules, i.e. the new property rules, will remain the precondition for the realisation of the urban constructional aims.

Property Assessment

The basic of any agreement is an appropriate assessment of the properties. This was the task of the expert committee "Market-Value Parliamentary and Government Quarter" which had its first meeting in April 1995. Its members were representatives of the Federation, the State of Berlin and the development agency DSK. By 1996 the committee had met eight times. It determined the soil index of the properties in the development area and thus provided extensive orientation concerning the amounts to be negotiated. Its property assessments have retained their value as basic values for the assessment of properties, with the necessary conjunctional adjustments. Market-value reports by publicly appointed experts are made for the individual value designation of properties - almost 80 reports by spring 2007, not counting the market-value reports directly obtained from the Berlin Real Property Fund.

Property assessments form the basis for the charging of compensation amounts and thus the dimensioning of the development-related surplus value. This value forms the difference between the value of the property which it would have without the value increases through the development measure (initial value) and the legally established increased property value through investments of the development measure (end value). It is the essential component of the revenue.

Properties can be expropriated as a "final means" for the general welfare. If the owner refuses to sell, it inevitably comes to such a procedure, since the State in the development measure is then legally obliged as a property acquisition. Five expropriation procedures have been initiated during the past 14 years but only one single case , but only one single case was further pursued, until a decision was made in Berlin's favour at the beginning of 2007.

Property Restructuring

Property restructuring is the second pillar on which rests the realisation of urban-constructional aims and legally established local plans.

In the historically developed inner city, the oldest part of Berlin, of all places, in which primarily the settlement of parliamentary and government functions have taken place, there are many lots, some of which can hardly be represented on lot maps due to the minimal size. In anticipation, sometimes also parallel to new developments and new construction, these old lots with often different utilisations (street land/building land) are arranged according to the new drawing of boundaries; lots are combined, divided and newly formed. An example of this process of property restructuring can be shown in the area of the "Berlin Townhouse" project on Friedrichswerder.

The Example of the "Berlin Townhouses"

The idea of an allotment-like new construction of Friedrichswerder with narrow townhouses and a renovation of the old streets was based upon the urban-constructional concept and the resultant local plan. Property relationships had to be restructured for this. There were only two large property owners to consider, but the area consisted of a number of historical lots of differing sizes. The Federation was the owner of the 9,100-square-metre parking lot which had once been used by the Central Committee of the German Socialist Unity Party; the bordering green areas were in the possession of the State. Without the intended restructuring, an unperceivable number of partial lots would have resulted which could have caused great chaos in the land register, not to mention the burden of mortgaging.

The new conception and new allotment of Friedrichswerder required property combinations according to legal ownership, lot divisions, establishment of boundaries, fusions and re-apportionments in a procedure consisting of several stages. First the availability of the properties was examined. Reassignment claims could be ruled out. The parking lot grounds were then transferred to the ownership of the State of Berlin, keeping all the properties in one hand to simplify the procedure in the future. After this essential step, the lots and partial lots were put together onto a few land register sheets and then fused together onto a single sheet. The result was one large lot. On the basis of the local plan, the new allotment of the complete lot for the many individual property owners could take place as a final step.

With this manner of proceeding, it was possible to make new lots available to the new owners in time. It took place in close cooperation between the Capital City Department and the DSK as well as with the Real Property Fund and the Surveying Office the borough of of Berlin Mitte. The threat of a land register chaos on Friedrichswerder had been successfully warded off.