Michael Kleine-Hartlage, managing director of Vebowag and developer of part of the Am Vogelsang area, is impressed by this fact. "It's growing together, it's becoming an urban quarter," he says, even though three different investors are pursuing quite different plans.

One, to the southwest, is Instone Real Estate's almost completed "Westside" project which has been built partly on a former Arkema industrial site, bordered all around by commercial areas. More than 500 rental and owner-occupied flats have been created. In rental contracts, there's a clause that excludes any complaints about construction noise.

Just a stone's throw away, Vebowag will build three blocks of at least 80 publicly subsidised flats on the site of the former Am Vogelsang sports field. Its neighbour on the open space at Siemensstraße/Kolpingstraße is Wohnbau GmbH, which is planning another 240 residential units there. The site has already been cleared, levelled and fenced off. A lone floodlight mast serves as a reminder of its former use as a sports field.

The fact that almost 200 trees fell victim to the project was a cause for concern. City building officer Helmut Wiesner, however, does not understand the protest. He says that sometimes every single tree is counted, but the importance of the big picture for urban development is not seen: "We should concentrate on building on such areas as densely as possible, exhausting the limits of what can be done and, in return, protecting the outer area with nature and landscape." At Vogelsang, flats are to be built on an old sports field," i.e. on an ecologically rather low-grade area".

The view of the back of the street Am Hügel, the eight-metre-high steep slope, the new Endenich Nord bus stop, is strange. You need good powers of imagination to visualise what will become home for a few hundred residents. "A heterogeneous environment", the administration calls it, 4.3 hectares between the streets Auf dem Hügel and Am Probsthof, "very introverted in a quiet insular location".

The state competition "New urban living - a home for all" with 30 offices laid the foundation for the development of the site in 2016. The winning design by Prof. Schmitz Architekten from Cologne sets a generous open space, the "green Anger" (green meadow), as a central structure that links the Campus Endenich, Campus Poppelsdorf and the city centre in the form of a pedestrian and cycle path. Two six-storey buildings are positioned at the Kolpingstraße junction, which, together with a neighbourhood square, represent the entrance to the quarter.

If it were up to Kleine-Hartlage, things would have gotten underway long ago. The project is almost a year behind schedule. In the third quarter of 2023, however, construction site 1 on Siemensstraße can get started. There will be 38 subsidised flats and commercial space here. An eight-group day-care centre is also planned, and there is space for a bakery, other retail shops and offices. Construction on site 6 is also scheduled to begin this year.

As calm as he seems, the Vebowag boss is under pressure. He ought to be building more social housing. This is a politically articulated call, and the housing shortage in Bonn is a worrying fact. How can this be done if there is no space? Kleine-Hartlage's strategy is "densification in existing buildings." As one example, he shows a construction project in the neighbourhood of the Vogelsang area on Hans-Sachs-Straße. Ten blocks - 72 flats - have been renovated by Vebowag to make them more energy-efficient. One block of flats was demolished and built bigger and higher, creating more units. "Where it's possible, we do it. That is our niche," he says. Depreciated old buildings are being replaced by modern, barrier-free ones. On average, the number of subsidised flats is at least doubled.

Vebowag's core task is social housing. But there is one exception. This is Steinstraße 60 in Bad Godesberg with a total of 31 two or three room, barrier-free, freely financed rental flats. The property is reserved for the pilot project "Apartment Exchange in Bonn". Kleine-Hartlage: "The aim of the pilot project is for people who live in flats that are too big for their needs to downsize and free up living space for families who need more space." The response has been good, he says. Five flats are still available.

Original text: Jutta Specht

Translation: Jean Lennox