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Make sure to visit it in Spring/Summer! The place is very lively with joggers, bikers, wind surfers, BBQs (although it is now banned because of lockdown I think

Make sure to visit it in Spring/Summer! The place is very lively with joggers, bikers, wind surfers, BBQs (although it is now banned because of lockdown I think), and tons of people just lying around and chatting. I understand that people needs houses but, I would consider letting go and demolishing this park would be as bad as demolishing Tiergarten. People need green spaces and parks as well.

kuschku 5y ago
Tempelhof has the advantage that it’s so large that both goals can be accomplished. Tempelhof is still significantly larger than the central park, after all. If they’d actually build affordable apartments and student dorms, berliners would be happy to support it.
- csunbird 5y ago
  I do not have much faith in government about anything related to housing, as they allowed Deutsche Wohnen merger to create an even larger monopoly on housing market [1]. The merger donated a small percentage of their apartments to social housing as a PR stunt but I am not convinced at all that, that merger beneficial for people of Berlin. [1] https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2021/pressemitteilung.1087828.php https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2...
  - kuschku 5y ago
    So start a petition to change the law so that construction on the tempelhofer feld is allowed while requiring that all buildings constructed on the tempelhofer Feld have to be priced according to the old Mietpreisbremse. If that petition gets enough signatures, it becomes a Volksentscheid, and if that gets enough votes, it'd be law. Especially in Berlin this shouldn't be too hard.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      IANAL but I don't think this would pass the Constitutional Court. Voting wasn't what killed the Mietpreisbremse - if you tried this probably we'd get some housing constructed and then immediately any limit ruled unconstitutional.
      - kuschku 5y ago
        It would relatively easily pass the constitutional court. The issue with the Mietpreisbremse was modifying existing ownership of land and buildings. If you make new contracts to sell and develop land, as would happen in this case, you can put any clause you want in there. You could even make a contract that says the CEO of Deutsche Wohnen has to run around in a bunny costume over the Alex if they want to build on Tempelhofer Feld – they don’t have to sign, after all.
        morelisp 5y ago
        Ah, first, we both (I assume based on your use of "old") made the common mistake of confusing the Deckel and the Bremse. So to clarify, I am assuming you meant "the old Mietendeckel" and that is what the court struck down - the Mietpreisbremse is still in effect. If this assumption is wrong and you rather did mean a pre-2015 version of the Mietpreisbremse implementation, sorry. > The issue with the [Mietendeckel] was modifying existing ownership of land and buildings. Was it? My understanding was that the decision ended purely on jurisdictional grounds. (Quick summary for anyone following along from the US, Germany has a kind of "inverse 10th Amendment" - the states can regulate things only as long as the federal level does not.) https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2021/bvg21-028.html https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemit... By passing §§ 556 to 561 BGB, the federal legislator conclusively exercised its concurrent legislative powers extending to the law governing rental fees as part of civil law... the Berlin Rent Cap Act constricts the latitude afforded by federal law to the parties to a tenancy contract and introduces parallel legislation governing rent at Land level that contains statistical and not market-dependent stipulations. In other words, I thought the problem was only that the law intruded on a legal framework between private housing providers and the federal government, not any particular aspect of what it changed.
jamil7 5y ago
> I understand that people needs houses but, I would consider letting go and demolishing this park would be as bad as demolishing Tiergarten. People need green spaces and parks as well. On top of this, as the article alluded to I'm dubious of what kind of apartments would be built. The kind of people who really need housing in the city are likely not going to benefit from whatever developers would do with the space.
- konschubert 5y ago
  Berlin is getting pretty good with mandating social housing. But still, there are probably many places in the city that could be built over first before Tempelhof.
myspy 5y ago
I don't get why they won't plant trees there, could help to cool the part of Berlin down.
- beeforpork 5y ago
  That's indeed a problem there. I was there for a walk on a cold and windy day. After walking for a while, we wanted to go back, and it turned out horrible, because back was against the wind, and there is nowhere to hide from the wind. Sure, you will not leave civilisation here, but trees would help. They probably don't plant any because when they finally do decide to build a new residential quarter, they'd also have to fight against tree savers. And probably there's a regulation that for each tree you fell, you need to plant a new one. So better not plant too many trees without good reason...
  - patall 5y ago
    I think that the open plain is what makes the Tempelhof Field what it is. If you want trees, Hasenheide is right next door, or you can go to any of the other forested areas. But for an really open place, there is no such place in the city. I agree that some tree cover at the sides could help against the traffic noise but the openness is what makes this place special.
shafyy 5y ago
BBQ is allowed again :-)
- csunbird 5y ago
  Now I know what I am doing next weekend.
pantalaimon 5y ago
Tempelhofer Feld is so vast, you could build housing and it would still be a huge park. Hardly anyone goes as far as to the southern strip, most people stay at the edges or bike through the center. You could build housing there with little influence on the character of the park.
- morelisp 5y ago
  > You could build housing there with little influence on the character of the park. Except that the value of any amount of housing there would skyrocket, be purchasable by only the richest expat assholes and Bayerischer trust fund kids, who would within five years get the police to enforce full Ruhezeit in the park because it's interfering with their startup's self-actualizing.
- nibix 5y ago
  IMHO, especially housing on the southern strip would massively influence the character of the space. If you ask people, what makes the space special, you will very often get the answer, that it is the space's openness and breadth. This impression is especially created by the southern strip, as open space continues also beyond of it: first, the railway (Ringbahn), after that the city highway and after that relatively low-rise industrial buildings. If you would build on the southern part, this view would be cut off much earlier. IMHO, if one wants to build housing on the field while keeping its character, one needs to build on the south-west corner - kind of as a continuation of the terminal building - or in the north-east corner.

kuschku 5y ago

Tempelhof has the advantage that it’s so large that both goals can be accomplished. Tempelhof is still significantly larger than the central park, after all. If they’d actually build affordable apartments and student dorms, berliners would be happy to support it.

csunbird 5y ago
I do not have much faith in government about anything related to housing, as they allowed Deutsche Wohnen merger to create an even larger monopoly on housing market [1]. The merger donated a small percentage of their apartments to social housing as a PR stunt but I am not convinced at all that, that merger beneficial for people of Berlin. [1] https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2021/pressemitteilung.1087828.php https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2...
- kuschku 5y ago
  So start a petition to change the law so that construction on the tempelhofer feld is allowed while requiring that all buildings constructed on the tempelhofer Feld have to be priced according to the old Mietpreisbremse. If that petition gets enough signatures, it becomes a Volksentscheid, and if that gets enough votes, it'd be law. Especially in Berlin this shouldn't be too hard.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    IANAL but I don't think this would pass the Constitutional Court. Voting wasn't what killed the Mietpreisbremse - if you tried this probably we'd get some housing constructed and then immediately any limit ruled unconstitutional.
    - kuschku 5y ago
      It would relatively easily pass the constitutional court. The issue with the Mietpreisbremse was modifying existing ownership of land and buildings. If you make new contracts to sell and develop land, as would happen in this case, you can put any clause you want in there. You could even make a contract that says the CEO of Deutsche Wohnen has to run around in a bunny costume over the Alex if they want to build on Tempelhofer Feld – they don’t have to sign, after all.
      - morelisp 5y ago
        Ah, first, we both (I assume based on your use of "old") made the common mistake of confusing the Deckel and the Bremse. So to clarify, I am assuming you meant "the old Mietendeckel" and that is what the court struck down - the Mietpreisbremse is still in effect. If this assumption is wrong and you rather did mean a pre-2015 version of the Mietpreisbremse implementation, sorry. > The issue with the [Mietendeckel] was modifying existing ownership of land and buildings. Was it? My understanding was that the decision ended purely on jurisdictional grounds. (Quick summary for anyone following along from the US, Germany has a kind of "inverse 10th Amendment" - the states can regulate things only as long as the federal level does not.) https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2021/bvg21-028.html https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemit... By passing §§ 556 to 561 BGB, the federal legislator conclusively exercised its concurrent legislative powers extending to the law governing rental fees as part of civil law... the Berlin Rent Cap Act constricts the latitude afforded by federal law to the parties to a tenancy contract and introduces parallel legislation governing rent at Land level that contains statistical and not market-dependent stipulations. In other words, I thought the problem was only that the law intruded on a legal framework between private housing providers and the federal government, not any particular aspect of what it changed.

jamil7 5y ago

> I understand that people needs houses but, I would consider letting go and demolishing this park would be as bad as demolishing Tiergarten. People need green spaces and parks as well. On top of this, as the article alluded to I'm dubious of what kind of apartments would be built. The kind of people who really need housing in the city are likely not going to benefit from whatever developers would do with the space.

konschubert 5y ago
Berlin is getting pretty good with mandating social housing. But still, there are probably many places in the city that could be built over first before Tempelhof.

myspy 5y ago

I don't get why they won't plant trees there, could help to cool the part of Berlin down.

beeforpork 5y ago
That's indeed a problem there. I was there for a walk on a cold and windy day. After walking for a while, we wanted to go back, and it turned out horrible, because back was against the wind, and there is nowhere to hide from the wind. Sure, you will not leave civilisation here, but trees would help. They probably don't plant any because when they finally do decide to build a new residential quarter, they'd also have to fight against tree savers. And probably there's a regulation that for each tree you fell, you need to plant a new one. So better not plant too many trees without good reason...
- patall 5y ago
  I think that the open plain is what makes the Tempelhof Field what it is. If you want trees, Hasenheide is right next door, or you can go to any of the other forested areas. But for an really open place, there is no such place in the city. I agree that some tree cover at the sides could help against the traffic noise but the openness is what makes this place special.

shafyy 5y ago

BBQ is allowed again :-)

csunbird 5y ago
Now I know what I am doing next weekend.

pantalaimon 5y ago

Tempelhofer Feld is so vast, you could build housing and it would still be a huge park. Hardly anyone goes as far as to the southern strip, most people stay at the edges or bike through the center. You could build housing there with little influence on the character of the park.

morelisp 5y ago
> You could build housing there with little influence on the character of the park. Except that the value of any amount of housing there would skyrocket, be purchasable by only the richest expat assholes and Bayerischer trust fund kids, who would within five years get the police to enforce full Ruhezeit in the park because it's interfering with their startup's self-actualizing.
nibix 5y ago
IMHO, especially housing on the southern strip would massively influence the character of the space. If you ask people, what makes the space special, you will very often get the answer, that it is the space's openness and breadth. This impression is especially created by the southern strip, as open space continues also beyond of it: first, the railway (Ringbahn), after that the city highway and after that relatively low-rise industrial buildings. If you would build on the southern part, this view would be cut off much earlier. IMHO, if one wants to build housing on the field while keeping its character, one needs to build on the south-west corner - kind of as a continuation of the terminal building - or in the north-east corner.