Management Approach

Vonovia believes that all areas in which it has large contiguous groups of buildings offer particular opportunities for sustainable development. These neighborhoods provide us with the opportunity to implement both construction and social measures. This brings with it a special responsibility, and the necessity of working with other players in urban society as partners. After all, developing entire neighborhoods is a project that requires the participation of many different people and stakeholder groups. Our aim is to cooperatively contribute to making our neighborhoods diverse and open spaces that people can identify with and where they can enjoy a high standard of living.

The holistic development of our neighborhoods is one of the areas that offers the greatest development potential for Vonovia. Neighborhood development includes key measures extending beyond modernization and maintenance to include the creation of new homes using new construction and vertical expansion measures, as well as measures to shape the residential environment.

We aim to develop entire areas of towns and cities with our holistic approach to neighborhood development by working with bulidings within the same area, their surroundings and local districts. We take both economic and social criteria into consideration and are committed to diverse social issues. The goal of this is to achieve an increase in the value of our property portfolio, which in turn is reflected in visible improvements for our customers in the attractiveness of the living space and the neighborhood alike.

The early inclusion of stakeholders in planning and decision-making processes allows us to record differing interests and to boost acceptance of our activities through targeted communication and participation measures.

Terms such as “living neighborhoods” or “neighborhoods worth living in” show that quality of living is increasingly being associated with life at a neighborhood level. As a result, neighborhoods are moving into the spotlight of the housing and real estate industry. In many respects, however, there is still a lack of sound research findings. In order to change this, Vonovia SE is sponsoring a professorship for “Neighborhood development, in particular residential living within the neighborhood” at the EBZ Business School – University of Applied Sciences. The aim of the endowment professorship is to research which parameters contribute to successful and forward-looking neighborhood development and what role residential real estate companies can play in this process.

Establishment in the Organization 103-2

Regional responsibility for neighborhood development lies with the regional managers, who coordinate measures with the regional managing directors. The measures are increasingly implemented by our own neighborhood developers on site, which allows us to deal with special issues that come up as needed. Our portfolio and tenant management department provides centralized support for neighborhood planning.

The investment measures are bundled in a neighborhood development plan spanning a period of several years and expanded to include further measures. These measures comprise infrastructure improvements, urban development issues and the realization of fully-integrated energy concepts and social and environmental measures.. These components are given due consideration right from the planning phase of the development projects of the BUWOG companies.