Now Stadt Zürich is considering buying them…don’t think that is going to go down well with taxpayers. They did this also with the Koch Areal.
Means-tested affordable wouldn’t be a bad idea.
If they wanted to do something, they should buy the land around the HB and knock down the low density housing there and build new tower blocks. I used to live there and they could build dozens of high density blocks in place of the row houses there.
That is pretty much what the SBB does, and they are the biggest single landlord in Switzerland. Unfortunately they resist adding affordable apartments in high-value areas.
Thank god.
Some of the land SBB owns has some heritage from the Industrial Revolution. Well before environmental laws, these plots were industrial zones. More than one of these industries went bankrupt the moment environmental laws were enforced.
There’s a chance the refusal to build affordable apartments in high value areas is the most responsible thing to do. Check soil pollution before jumping to conclusions.
Can’t tell much beyond SBB has a long list of sites pending for environmental remediation (cleaning harmful pollutants) in the land next to train stations. They start new remediation projects every year, but it will take a while to finish.
You’ve misunderstood me, I’m referring to the apartments blocks they have built. In those, they have resisted including affordable housing for fear it would reduce the value of the full freight apartments.
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I hope they’ll never follow up this idea…this will basically “kill” the city.
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Ahhh, I was wrong. No risk of leaking confidential data 
There’s public information. This is the ZH HB, the oranges zones are: Belastet, weder überwachungs- noch sanierungsbedürftig = Polluted neither in need of monitoring nor remediation
I’m not 100% sure, but that means the soil has some pollutant(s) stick to it. As long as the soil is not disturbed, bad stuff will stay there. Digging to build foundations of new buildings risks generating dust that everyone will breath…that’s a hard sell.
Ohhhhh, the apartments of discord are next to one of the plots in the map. Oooops!
Well, the Europalllee development they did was quite OK. And if you can’t build high density next to a loud noisy railway station in the city center, I don’t know where you could build it.
I talk about this area in blue:
Ahhhhhh, that’s another story. The article you share brings another issue up. SBB and the worker’s committee looks after their 2nd pillar. Can’t fail them for that.
Unaffordable for most people and also for the majority of SBB employees, whose pension fund is to be restructured with the proceeds.
Maybe the 2nd pillar system that relies on rental apartments is a snake that eats its own tail. I see nice numbers every year (10+%) in the 2nd pillar. But, if rents goes up because 2nd pillar institutions want to maximize yield, where’s the win?
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That’s what they did in the UK in the 1950s and 60s - knocking down the slums - the rows of terrace houses (without bathrooms) and building tower blocks instead and housing the slum occupants there.
The tower blocks became the new slums.
Ironically, the terraced houses which weren’t knocked down have now become the new sought-after city properties once extended and renovated.
Well, these houses are already very desirable.
You just need to build quality. Often in the UK, ex-council flats are still desirable as they built them with a decent amount of space. Some of the new build flats are built to extract as much profit as possible and shrinking space to sqeeze in an extra unit.
But there used to be some industrial warehouses in that area (which SBB has bought from their owners), not low density residential quarters.
We owe these new office buildings to the SBB’s decision to build the new 20 railways underground, the miracles of civil engineering… 
It’s funny, I guess SBB is currently the largest real estate investor…
City parliament approves 2025 budget of 11 bn. Says no to tax cut. Increases budget for real estate purchases from 500 to 600 mn. Interestingly, the city’s “CFO” (Green) was against the additional 100 mn.
Perhaps a good percentage of the residents there are long-time city employees.
The Sugus apartments are next to Züri-West:
The latest Raiffeisen Bank real estate report published in September, has revealed a 6.4% increase in rental offers for the second quarter of this year, the highest rise in over 30 years. In the gentrified area of Zurich-West, the real estate market continues to surge, with luxury developments becoming more prevalent.
Real estate reports frequently highlight steep rents in Ersatzneubau – older buildings which have been replaced with new ones. For instance, 3.5-room apartments in Zurich-West are listed at up to CHF 8,100 ($9,168), according to the local daily Tages-Anzeiger. This contrasts sharply with city-wide averages of CHF1,787 for a four-room apartment and CHF1,470 for a three-room apartment, as reported by the city of Zurich in 2022.
The Covid-19 pandemic affected the real estate market: suburban houses became more attractive and office space less essential. Yet, Zurich’s tech and finance sectors expanded significantly during this period, marked by the influx of high-wage employees from startups and the presence of Google’s European headquarters. The latter has been growing steadily since 2004 and now employs over 5,000 people in a city of roughly 450,000.
Then, the article takes the path of gentrification and affordable housing as human right.
Also a reminder that this was a problem area due to drug use in the streets. The city of Zürich invested to transform this area. Decades later the investment is paying.
PS. Google Europaplatz is 10 min by walking from the controversial apartments.
SRG’s top female executive resides in a Sugus and, together with her partner, earns CHF 500,000 annually (SRG-Spitzenfrau wohnt in sozialem „Sugus“-Haus – Inside Paradeplatz)
Well, you can´t blame her for living in her own house?
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Yes, she has done nothing wrong. But it blunts the argument that the occupants are generally poor and won’t find an alternative.
How many of them are people like her though?
If the majority of the occupants are not well off like her and will have difficulty finding another place then the argument is still valid.
On the other hand people like her will have a harder time proving the need for an extension than those on lower incomes.