Munich has not put forward container village for students and trainees, city planning chief says

Munich has not submitted a proposal for a container village for students and trainees on unused city land to the International Building Exhibition in the Munich metropolitan region (IBA-M), according to the city's head of urban planning, Professor Dr Elisabeth Merk. The idea came from a motion by city councillors Alexandra Gaßmann, Heike Kainz, Hans-Peter Mehling and Thomas Schmid of the CSU with Freie Wähler group on the city council, dated 24 September 2024. It proposed temporary housing for trainees as an interim use of undeveloped city-owned plots.

In her reply, Merk referred to an earlier response, dated 27 August 2026, to a similar motion from the then SPD-Volt group dated 4 June 2024. That motion called for temporary "pop-up flats" on city plots that already have services and access in place. Both initiatives aimed to tackle the acute shortage of housing for young people in Munich with quick, cost-efficient, innovative and flexible solutions.

The Department of Urban Planning and Building Regulations explained that the IBA-M carries out projects on future-oriented mobility in the Munich metropolitan region. In 2024 the city submitted seven project ideas to the IBA-M as a first step. On the instruction of the city council in a decision of 4 October 2023, the department managed and coordinated the city's internal process for selecting and submitting these ideas from the many proposals put forward by several departments. A container village for students and trainees was not among them.

However, if private initiators see potential for using vacant land for "pop-up flats" and find suitable sites, the project's promoter or the landowner could submit the idea to the IBA-M independently. The city's IBA unit has offered to provide advice.

The city said it considers the matter closed with this reply.