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THE WORLD

BERLIN — At a showing
for a small apartment, Lena
Vasiljeva was surprised to
find a crowd of 60 potential
renters — and intuitively fig-
ured she and her husband
had little chance, especially
because they’re foreigners.
“It’s become really, really
hard to find an apartment in
Berlin,” said Vasiljeva, a 36-
year-old software developer
from Russia who applied for
120 apartments in a 35-day
full-time search, before fi-
nally succeeding.
“Even though we both
have well-paying jobs,” said
Vasiljeva, whose husband is
from Latvia, “trying to find
an apartment in Berlin is no
fun at all.”
House hunting in Berlin
could become even more dif-
ficult in the years ahead now
that the city’s controversial
five-year rent freeze, an-
nounced last June, is in ef-
fect. The measure freezing
prices at June 2019 levels,
which is being challenged in
court, can also force land-
lords of some 1.5 million pri-
vate and public housing
units in Berlin to lower rents
if they’re deemed excessive.
The Mietendeckel (or
rent cap), as it is known, was
designed by the city govern-
ment to apply a brake on
what was deemed, by Berlin
standards, a steep hike in
rents over the last decade.
Berlin has turned into a
boom town, and once dirt-
cheap rental prices started
to catch up to levels in other
major German cities —
though they remain far
lower than in London, Paris,
New York and Los Angeles.
The average monthly rent
for a two-bedroom (900-
square-foot) apartment in
Berlin is now about $600, up
60% since 2000, according to
city government figures.
Some renters, such as
Vasiljeva and her 41-year-old
husband, Anton, also a soft-
ware developer, pay upward
of twice that amount for
modest one-bedroom apart-
ments near the center of the
city. The new law will allow
renters paying more than
the cap of $10.80 per square
meter, which works out to
about $900 per month for an
average, 900-square-foot
apartment, to petition the
city to try to force landlords
to lower the rent.
The cap is being closely
watched by other cities,

both across Germany and

around the world, that are

searching for antidotes to

rapidly rising rents. So far, it

is hugely popular among the

legions of renters in Berlin,

especially in the formerly

communist eastern half of

the city, where Cold War-era

generations paid a small

fraction of their income for

housing and nostalgia for

those glorious days behind

the Iron Curtain runs high.

Some city leaders, mostly

from the eastern districts of

Berlin, have been clamoring

for measures as extreme as

expropriating property from

private developers who

pushed rents higher on

200,000 apartments that the

city privatized more than a

decade ago.

Critics warn that the cap

on rents — and talk of emi-

nent domain — in a city that

at times is still struggling to

fully come to terms with its

communist past has been

scaring away private in-

vestors. It will also, they

worry, slow housing con-

struction, and thus probably

exacerbate the housing

shortage in a city where

more than 80% of the popu-

lation are renters.

“Some investors will cer-

tainly be frightened away

from Berlin by the rent cap,

but it’s no big loss to see

them go because they were

evidently only interested in

making lots of money,” said

Wibke Werner, deputy direc-

tor of the Berlin Mieter-

verein renters association,

in an interview. Landlords,

sometimes seen as villains in

Berlin, in theory face fines of

up to $550,000 if they refuse

to lower rents to the cap’s

upper limit.

“Sure, it’s intervening in

the free market,” she added.

“But regulation is needed

when markets get out of con-

trol. The rent cap will give

renters in Berlin breathing

space for a few years so that

the supply can hopefully

catch up with demand.”

Rent hikes have been

spurred by a growing popu-

lation since the federal gov-

ernment’s move to Berlin in

1999, and an influx of foreign-

ers, including refugees from

Syria and elsewhere. Since

2012, the city’s population

has increased to 3.7 million,

up by 250,000.

Tens of thousands of

demonstrators have

marched through Berlin

over the last two years to de-

mand a halt to rising rents,

which developers and rent

protection groups also

blame on increasingly com-

plex building regulations

that have hindered housing

construction.

“There just aren’t enough

apartments in Berlin to

meet the demand and there

are some speculators push-

ing prices to indecent lev-

els,” said Michael Zahn, the

head of Deutsche Wohnen, a

company that rents 110,

apartments in Berlin, in a re-

cent interview with Der

Tagesspiegel newspaper.

“The problem is high de-

mand. The rent cap is only

going to cause chaos and

disharmony.”

Berlin has a long tradi-

tion of providing consider-

able state support for low-

cost housing. Mayors from

the major political parties

on the left and right have

backed heavy investment in

housing for the working

class and subsidies so that

teachers, police officers, fire-

fighters and nurses can af-

ford to live in any section of

Berlin — even in the heart of

the city.

As a result, many devel-

opers long avoided Berlin.

Unemployment was long

higher here than in the rest

of Germany, rents were

cheap and property prices

even declined in many parts

of the city during the 1990s

and early 2000s.

Berlin sold off more than

220,000 of its 360,000 rent-

subsidized social housing

units for a pittance when

prices were depressed more

than a decade ago — a move

it now regrets.

“No one thought back

then that Berlin would be

the boom town it’s become,”

said Zahn, whose company

rents its apartments for an

average of $600 per month

for a 900-square-foot unit.

“The city was in a precarious

financial situation. But

that’s not the problem now.

The problem is that there

aren’t enough apartments.”

The German Constitu-

tion guarantees the right to

Wohnraum(a place to live),

and renter advocates reject

the notion that apartments

are like any other commod-

ity.

“It’s our job to stop the

speculators,” said Werner,

who is confident the mea-

sure will survive the court

challenge.

Kirschbaum is a special

correspondent.

In Berlin, 5-year rent freeze

kicks in amid housing crunch

By Erik Kirschbaum

channels he watches in his

room carry only state-con-

trolled information that he

worries might downplay the

seriousness of the outbreak.

The Chinese internet is no

better, he says.

“Chinese TV is really bor-

ing, and the media reports

are not as free and open as

they are in Taiwan,” Chen

said via China’s state-moni-

tored WeChat social media

app. “We are really restless in

here, so our moods get

pretty bad.”

He and his wife, 48, trav-

eled to China last month to

visit her relatives. Now they

watch televised dramas all

day in their room with two

single beds. A hotel staffer

would block any effort to

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chen
Chi-chuan was grateful
when his hotel near the epi-
center of the China co-
ronavirus outbreak offered
him three free meals a day,
from rice porridge break-
fasts to specially prepared
vegetarian dinners, while he
remains barred from leaving
China to return to Taiwan.
But after nearly a month
in the same room at the
state-owned Vienna Inter-
national Hotel in the city of
Shiyan, a six-hour drive
from the outbreak epicenter
of Wuhan, his patience for
China is running thin.
For the last two years
China has tried to win the af-
fections of Taiwanese resi-
dents by enticing them to
China for work and invest-
ment. China’s economy is
growing faster and Taiwan-
ese can earn more in China
in professional posts.
But aggravation is
mounting among the nearly
1,000 visitors, investors and
workers from Taiwan stuck
behind closed doors this
month in the disease out-
break zone.
The stranded Taiwanese
say they notice a slew of infu-
riating differences in China.
They cite state television
newscasts thin on specifics,
controlled internet access,
lack of adequate medica-
tions, a ban on going outside
and their being blocked from
flying home from the out-

break zone as Americans

and Europeans have done.

They can’t leave, they

have been told, because of

disputes between Beijing

and Taipei on how to ar-

range charter flights.

Chen, a 51-year-old elec-

trician and pipe installation

contractor, needs to refill

five anti-cholesterol pre-

scriptions for a long-term

heart condition. He has

asked relatives in Taiwan to

mail the drugs to him be-

cause he has no access to

them in China.

He suspects he’s receiv-

ing incomplete news about

the disease formally called

COVID-19 even though he is

quarantined within the out-

break zone. The Chinese TV

leave the room. All the peo-

ple in the hotel are confined

to their rooms until further

notice, he said. They are not

supposed to use the lobby or

the piano bar; to mix with

others would risk spreading

the illness. They see police

officers on the street from

their 24th-floor window.

Liu Ruo-yu, 40, of Tai-

wan, also worries that she is

receiving insufficient infor-

mation. She arrived with her

two children on Jan. 22 to vis-

it her parents in Huangshi

City and now is not allowed

to walk through the apart-

ment door except every

three days to receive food de-

liveries within the com-

pound of the seven-story

apartment block. Once she

saw posted signs that said

four people in the compound

have caught the virus. She

doesn’t know who they are

or where they went. “I’m

really nervous,” she said.

Liu is confined to a three-

bedroom apartment with

her 12-year-old son, 14-year-

old daughter, her parents,

her brother and his 2-year-

old. It’s crowded, straining

people’s patience at times.

Liu has joined a social

media group with 200 other

Taiwanese quarantined in

or near Wuhan since Jan. 25.

That day was Lunar New

Year, a major Chinese holi-

day and the reason she went

back to visit. Her husband, a

teacher, remained behind.

“The city closure is strict-

er every day,” she said re-

cently via WeChat.

Her children can only

play video games much of

the day. And they don’t like

the food. “They’re just cop-

ing with it,” she said.

China feeds and houses

the Taiwanese, said Chung

Chin-ming, who is chairman

of the Chinese Cross-Strait

Marriage Coordination

Assn. in Taipei and part of a

protest group urging the

Taiwanese government to

help people come home. But

his stranded fellow Taiwan-

ese “are getting restless, and

I’m sure that’s a problem,”

he said.

Taiwan’s government will

bring home its residents if

they stay in quarantine on

the island for 14 days.

But the only Taiwan-

bound charter flight to date

left on Feb. 4. Three of the

247 people who boarded the

plane were not on a list that

Taiwan gave to the Chinese

authorities, and one tested

positive for the virus. Before

any more charters can leave,

the Taiwanese government’s

Mainland Affairs Council

wants China to first reach

agreement with Taiwan on

which passengers — for ex-

ample the elderly or people

with chronic health prob-

lems — should have higher

priority to return. Chinese

officials have challenged

whether certain people on

the lists should be allowed to

leave first.

China claims sovereignty

over Taiwan despite the is-

land’s self-rule for more than

70 years, and insists the two

sides will eventually unify.

Consequently, Chinese

officials pay extra attention

because of the potential for a

“public relations night-

mare,” said Yun Sun, East

Asia Program senior associ-

ate at the Stimson Center

think tank in Washington.

In 2018 the Chinese gov-

ernment began offering Tai-

wanese residents dozens of

work, study and investment

incentives as a way to inter-

est them in eventual uni-

fication. Younger Taiwanese

entertainers, tech profes-

sionals and managers in

multinational firms have

moved to the mainland for

wages that employment

consultancy Manpower-

Group says average 1.2 to 1.

times higher than at home,

prompting Taiwan to re-

spond with its own incen-

tives for locals to stay.

Hundreds of thousands

of Taiwanese were living in

China as of last year. “From

the mainland [Chinese] gov-

ernment perspective, they

have every reason to treat

these people with the best

conditions they can offer, be-

cause they want to buy peo-

ple’s hearts and minds in

Taiwan,” Sun said.

But the ongoing quaran-

tine angers the 1,000 Taiwan-

ese who ventured to Hubei

province.

“Every morning, I check

for news,” Liu said. “But ev-

ery time it’s just, ‘We’re ar-

ranging things, we’re ar-

ranging things.’ The two

sides are kicking us back

and forth. I can’t stand it.”

Jennings is a special

correspondent.

Taiwanese antsy amid China’s lockdown

NURSESin protective suits look at a smartphone at a temporary hospital at Ta-

zihu Gymnasium in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province on Friday.

Chinatopix

Outbreak in Italy

The nation tries to check

virus’ spread. WORLD, A

Efforts to contain

virus confine visitors

for nearly a month.

By Ralph Jennings