High-deck settlement Neukölln | Between bed bugs and construction site

The striking architecture in the high-deck development is increasingly falling into disrepair. Photo: imago/Sabine Gudath “We have such a little pearl here,” says Katharina Birke as she climbs the stairs. On the first floor, she points to a spot just below the ceiling. You can see a wall with heating pipes sticking out of it. The seal is torn and the pipes are bare in one place. »This heating pipe serves the kitchens of four tenants. It has been defective since January 2025,” says Birke. Your own kitchen is also affected. There was no rent reduction or electronic heaters as a replacement, says Birke. In November 2025, the heating was simply switched on and “water then ran into the house for days.” Birke has photos and videos of it that are available to “nd”. Further down the stairwell you can see curved and peeling plaster where the watercourse is.

Birke is a resident of the High Deck settlement in Neukölln. Her actual name is different, her real name is known to the editors. The 40-year-old is part of the High-Deck-Siedlung neighborhood initiative, which has campaigned against what it sees as untenable rental conditions in recent months. The settlement was built in the 70s. “It’s actually a really cool architectural project,” says Birke. The rental apartments are connected in the middle via a “deck” that runs along the street like a bridge or elevated railway, making it a car-free area. The construct extends on two sides of Sonnenallee and belongs to Hogowe.

Just behind the wall with the broken heating pipe, Birke points to the elevator. That too is out of order. “There were strobe effects inside, it wasn’t entirely safe,” she says. It was only after weeks that the property management put up a sticker so that people would not mistakenly think that they could use the elevator in this condition. This, says Birke ironically, means that from Howoge's point of view the problem is "so to speak solved." For old people or parents with small children, the broken elevator in a multi-story building is a burden.

Otherwise, Howoge only communicates via notices, even in the case of acute incidents such as Legionella infestation - a spore-forming bacteria that lives in water and can cause lung diseases. Many residents don’t understand German.

“They just think: where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge.”

Around 7,000 people live here in the High Deck settlement - most of them with low incomes and a migration background. In 2008, a monitoring commissioned by the Berlin Senate identified a “very problematic development” in the settlement. Katharina Birke believes that this could also be a reason why tenants' concerns are treated so carelessly. “They just think: where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge.” Many people do not know their rights or cannot communicate their concerns.

The High Deck development belongs to the Howoge housing company, which is wholly owned by the State of Berlin. When asked by nd, a spokesman said that the housing company “takes the concerns” of tenants “very seriously.” And he explains: "The settlement was taken over by Howoge in a very poor structural condition and with a significant backlog of maintenance that had accrued over many years."

The settlement had previously belonged to the real estate group Vononovia and was sold to Berlin in 2021 under opaque conditions - namely without involving the House of Representatives - and at a high price. This was part of a larger purchase in which the city bought a total of 14,000 apartments from the merged companies Vonovia and Deutsche Wohnen. The purchase was driven by the SPD at the time. There was criticism of this from both the Green and Left coalition partners at the time, as well as from the opposition. The then leader of the Green Party in the House of Representatives, Antje Kapek, told the RBB in recent days: The questions about the condition, need for renovation and location of the apartments had probably not been answered "because they were not properly checked." The purchase price is probably too high.

So does Howoge have to wait out what the Senate has given her? Birke admits that there was “a political decision from somewhere at the top” and that it is a structural problem. »They then had these almost 2,000 residential units built in a condition that was not good. I can well imagine that they didn’t necessarily get more staff for this,” she says. »But that's no excuse. Despite everything, we all pay rent here. We are also at twelve euros per square meter, and the new rentals are of course even more expensive.

Birch accesses the deck from the second floor. She points to houses surrounded by scaffolding. »This is the Michael-Bohnen-Ring 12, 14 and 16. A “modernization” is being done here, as they call it. It's actually a renovation.« No small difference: a renovation is considered necessary and must be taken over by the landlord. Modernization can be carried out in the form of a levy at the tenant’s expense. From the point of view of Birke and her colleagues, the costs for a fundamentally necessary renovation are being passed on to the residents under the guise of modernization.

On the deck we meet our neighbor Andreas. Because of the construction site, only 15 square meters of his 33 square meter apartment can be used, he says. Andreas has been a tenant in the high-deck development for ten years. Although he had to live in his one-room apartment with a construction site as a separate parent with his five-year-old daughter, Hogowe did not provide him with a replacement apartment. He then looked for an apartment at his own expense. However, because of a bed bug problem here in the High Deck development that went untreated for months, he was unable to take the furniture with him to the new apartment. “It will finally be done tomorrow,” says the resident. »The exterminator was finally inside. Of course it took two or three months.”

A little further we go down the stairs from the deck to the ground level. There are two containers set up here, one for men, one for women. There are toilets and two showers each, "because renovations are currently taking place in the buildings with the scaffolding," explains Birke. Some tenants don't have a kitchen or bathroom during the renovation. She doesn't know exactly how many people will have to share these container toilets, as some tenants have now been able to get replacement apartments or the bathrooms are not affected by the renovation. However, with three multi-story buildings, two containers with two showers each seem insufficient.

Regarding »nd«, a spokeswoman for Howoge says that since the takeover the company has been working “intensively” to “comprehensively analyze the structural condition and prepare and implement necessary repair and modernization measures.” Coordination with authorities and monument protection is also necessary. The neighborhood initiative was also invited to a conversation in the customer center. Birch laughs bitterly when she hears this. She demands that Howoge look at the problems on site and listen to the people.

The Kiezinitiative managed to translate its open letter into Arabic, Turkish, Russian and English. Over 1,000 people have already signed the letter. It presents deficiencies “that we pay for with our health, quality of life and safety.” In addition to the damage that Birke showed during her tour, the letter complains about mold, water damage, leaky windows and rats, among other things.

On Tuesday afternoon, people from the neighborhood initiative hung a golden banner in front of the “Sonnen-Center” shopping center on the High Deck: “1000 people say: Stop” is written on it. Around 70 local residents come to the rally. Howoge canceled the appointment. But Berlin politicians from the Greens, the Left and the SPD came. That makes Birke optimistic. Since Howoge is a state-owned company and is bound by instructions, "politics has a completely different influence than on private companies," she says. “It will somehow.”

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