Project

Making affordable housing possible in Frauenfeld

A committee of concerned citizens submits an affordable-housing initiative to the Frauenfeld City Council. EBP helps the City Council to prepare a response and draft a counterproposal.

Urban areas are becoming ever more attractive as places to live, and the demand for housing in urban areas is increasing accordingly. This development has led to a steep rise in the prices residents have to pay to rent or purchase apartments. As a result, affordable housing has become an important issue in the context of urban development in recent years, and one which has also gained the attention of public interest groups and city officials in the Swiss city of Frauenfeld. In the spring of 2015, a special committee submitted the text of the “Frauenfeld Housing Initiative” to the city government. The aim of the initiative is to encourage the city to take a proactive approach to the creation of affordable housing.

Acting in the capacity of a consultant, EBP helped the Frauenfeld City Council to draft both a response to the initiative and a counterproposal. EBP approached its assignment by studying the current housing situation in Frauenfeld, outlining the effects of the initiative and presenting alternatives to the measures specified in the initiative. This work was then used as a basis by the City Council to arrive at an evaluation of the initiative.

After reaching the conclusion that the goal of the initiative warranted support, but that a number of the specified measures were not optimally suited to achieving the goal, the City Council drafted a plan for the promotion of affordable housing as an indirect counterproposal. In addition to measures for promoting affordable housing, the plan includes guidelines for the renting of city-owned apartments. EBP supported the City Council when it came to drafting the alternative plan.

In response, the initiative committee promised the City Council that it would withdraw the initiative pending the approval of the new plan by the Municipal Council. After examining the initiative and the city’s counterproposal at its meeting on March 16, 2016, the Municipal Council passed a resolution to approve the counterproposal without amendment. The counterproposal is thereby expected to come into effect before the end of 2016.

Picture Credits: Silvan Bachmann

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