The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning

Research Project: Activation of potential infill development areas in growing communities – identifying and testing the components of active management

Project briefing

  • Status Completed
  • Project duration January 2017 – December 2020
  • Programme ExWoSt

Particularly in growing communities, it is necessary to promote new housing construction through infill development. However, this gives rise to a wide range of coordination and negotiation requirements. The aim of the model projects in this research field was to find practical solutions to how an approach based primarily on information and cooperation could use infill development management to contribute to more housing construction in infill development.

Background

The prioritisation of infill development over greenfield development represents a central consideration in sustainable urban development. It serves to guarantee that the demand for development areas for residential purposes can be met and that, at the same time, minimise the use of natural and green spaces. In this context, the supply of land for residential use is of special significance for infill development. More and more cities are reporting increasing housing demands, which necessitates further new housing construction. If the required residential sites can be mobilised primarily by way of infill development, this would on the one hand form the basis for needs-based new housing construction, and on the other, reduce the need for further greenfield development. For growing cities, the activation of land for residential use in infill development is therefore a central starting point for aligning a resource-conserving urban development with growing housing demands.

However, community practice shows that some of the potential infill development areas cannot be activated despite diverse activities. This is partly due to a lack of necessary basic information on the actual availability of gap sites and other potential areas as well as existing impediments to residential usage. There may also be a lack of sufficiently active development area management focused on, for example, targeting the owners of the areas and possible investors.

Objective

Against this background, selected model communities were supported in the ExWoSt research field, as an accompaniment to the Federal Government’s housing construction initiative as part of the Alliance for Affordable Housing and Construction. They were intended to test and implement solutions that lead to a speedier and more comprehensive implementation of potential infill development areas for housing construction. The aim also involved formulating a practice-based definition of the range of tasks and the working methods of an “infill development manager” or “infill development management” dealing with housing construction tasks.

The contractor of this research project was Quaestio Forschung & Beratung, Bonn.

Contact us

  • Ernst Degener
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division WB 8 "Housing and Society"
    Phone: +49 228 99401-1243
    Email: ernst.degener@bbr.bund.de

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