What are building cooperatives?
Living in your own four walls, individually designed to suit your own wishes, right next to neighbors you already knew before you moved in, in a lively and reliable neighborhood—who wouldn't want that? And as the icing on the cake, there may even be a common room for parties or sports, a guest room, or other useful communal areas that would not have been affordable on your own.
What sounds like a happy coincidence can actually be actively shaped by you. In building communities, several people join forces to plan, build, or renovate for their own use or for rental. More and more people across Germany are coming together for this purpose. The state capital of Mainz supports building communities by reserving land, among other things.
Who? Colorful and diverse
The reasons for joining forces in a building group, planning and building together are as varied as the lifestyles of those involved:
The dividers
The sunshine
Young and old
The master builders
The urbanists
Diversity instead of simplicity
The freelancers
Why build and live together?
Building communities offer the city of Mainz many opportunities: On the one hand, they represent a solution to the need for affordable housing. On the other hand, building communities make it possible to mix different types of housing in neighborhoods and create functioning communities. But there are also major advantages for the building communities themselves:
More co-design & more identification
More neighborhood
More community
More cost benefits
More sustainability
How does something like this work?
- Friends, acquaintances, and like-minded individuals join together to form a community of interest. They coordinate their ideas and possibly recruit a few more group members.
- In addition to searching for their own property, the interest group applies for a municipal property with its construction and financial concept. To this end, the group adopts a binding legal form.
- Once the bid is accepted, the planning and financing concept is further refined.
- Once the planning has been successfully completed, the property is purchased and construction begins.
Interested? Or do you have any questions? Then please contact baugemeinschaftenstadt.mainzde
Our final report and guide also provide a good overview of the topic of "building communities":
