Berlin designates former freight yard for major housing development

Berlin's Senate has designated the 'Stadteingang West' site — a former Grunewald freight yard — as an area of exceptional urban-development significance, clearing the way for an estimated 2,400 to 2,800 new homes alongside social infrastructure, commerce and logistics space. Affordable-housing delivery on the site will be led by the municipal housing company Howoge.

The project is a notable example of a city using a state-owned housing company to convert reclaimed industrial and rail land into housing at scale, a model that other large cities grappling with brownfield redevelopment and housing shortages are likely to watch closely.