Image: APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH
“It’s the highest priority to take action.” Porr CEO Karl-Heinz Strauss addressed these words to politics on Monday.
Affordable housing is becoming increasingly scarce, and what is needed is a “national solidarity across party lines,” said Strauss in the business journalists’ club. Porr is the second largest construction company in Austria after Strabag.
The government is currently working with the social partners on a construction package. According to the announcement, the result will be presented this week.
“Then comes social unrest”
His appeal was “not a storm in a teacup,” said the manager. “You can’t not live – then we will have a housing crisis, then there will be social unrest, which we all don’t want,” warned Strauss. If there is no will to “do something meaningful across party lines,” everyone would be politically punished. Nobody needs election campaign gifts.
If no apartments were built, rents would rise. All of this is due to high construction and land prices and difficult financing. Strauss rejected the proposal for a non-repayable home ownership bonus of 100,000 euros. He misses social accuracy here. It would be “much smarter” to promote the purchase of land or the construction and purchase of apartments on a social scale, said the manager.
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