Gestern brachte ich meine Freundin zum Brüsseler Flughafen (die Sicherheitskontrolle war superschnell) und beschloss, auf dem Rückweg einen Spaziergang in Seraing und Lüttich (wo das Buch spielt, das ich schreibe) zu machen. Neben dem Gare d’Ougrée werden Häuser renoviert und neben verlassenen Häusern gebaut. Ougrée hat wahrscheinlich einen der niedrigsten Immobilienpreise in Belgien. Wie zahlt sich das aus? Wie kommt es, dass Genehmigungen so schnell erteilt werden? In meinem Land gibt es fast keine Neubauten und diese sind extrem teuer. Baufirmen sagen, es sei fast unmöglich. Ich wohne neben einigen verlassenen Fabriken in einer der teuersten Städte, und wenn etwas passiert, bauen sie ein paar kleine Wohnblöcke, die für 8.000 €/m2 verkauft werden. Auch die Straßenbahn fährt alle 10 Minuten, sogar um Mitternacht.
https://i.redd.it/gq0kuezi2mlg1.jpeg
Von KevinKowalski
5 Kommentare
It’s called the „bestendige deputatie“.
It’s a weird one.
Small projects get done fast.
Big ones get blocked immediately; Eg. New Club Brugge Stadion, New ‘Boerentoren’.
Belgians hate large scale projects unless it benefits them directly.
Belgians like real estate, a lot of them see it as a ’solid investment‘, often local developers have good ties with local politicians who give them good deals. There is nobody who wants to be the official ‚permit‘ functionary because they basically are not allowed to do their job by the politicians (making them go into burn-out or change to other jobs). This is a big issue in the municipal governments and is leading to the job now being outsourced mostly to consultants as they are less exposed to the ‚local‘ pressures of politician A wanting to do his neighbour a favor and politician B promising developer Z to get him his permit approved and what not…
Also cheap (illegal) labor by eastern-European and ‚Portuguese‘ (= Brazilian/Mozambique) workers makes that you can easily skimp on production price while ’selling price‘ remains relatively high as a lot of people want a ’new/renovated‘ house instead of living in the old, unrenovated houses that are on the market.
There was a Pano on the issue about the impact it has on the local construction sector: [https://www.vrt.be/vrtmax/a-z/pano/2025-nj-/pano-s2025-nj-a5/](https://www.vrt.be/vrtmax/a-z/pano/2025-nj-/pano-s2025-nj-a5/) Insurance, health care wise it’s a nightmare as these ‚detached‘ people are supposed to pay taxes and get health care and insurance in the country the company is operating from but in these countries there are no checks whatsoever and their governments ‚profit‘ from getting extra tax income without incurring any costs… It’s one of the silent bombs under EU cooperation I think and it got worse after Brexit as they were the ‚main‘ destination before but after Brexit all these companies just shifted their work terrain to Benelux I think :‘)
We don’t build enough. I’m from Ghent and I think we should build semi-high rising appartment buildings any chance we get. Get rid of the neighbourhood complaints, just fucking build it.
Everyone constantly complains about high real estate prices, but nobody wants to actually solve the issue.
That is Wallonia, proices are much lower there than in Flanders and Brussels. Seraing is an old steel town so not aa lot of employment opportunities there.