In 2016 Conan O'Brien went there, because the airport was being used to house refugees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j39oTM2DLGs . According to the German Wikipedia article of the airport, this use would only be limited for 3 years until the end of 2019, but there were also a lot of protests against it.
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.
But still, there are probably many places in the city that could be built over first before Tempelhof.
If they’d actually build affordable apartments and student dorms, berliners would be happy to support it.
[1] https://www.berlin.de/rbmskzl/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/2...
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.
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.
> 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/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.
But that wouldn't have to happen in Tempelhof, as this requirement wouldn't be passed the same way, it'd just be part of the contract selling the land. And a law from the state, requiring the state to only produce such contracts of sale.
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...
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.
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.
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.