Public Opinion

Public Opinion Kockelkorn, Anne, Susanne Schindler and Rebekka Hirschberg with Gina Rauschtenberger and Alexia Zeller. “Public Opinion.” In Anne Kockelkorn, Susanne Schindler, and Rebekka Hirschberg. Cooperative Conditions: A Primer on Architecture, Finance and Regulation in Zurich. Zürich: gta Verlag, 2024, 71–99. https://doi.org/10.54872/gta/4654-2 ISBN (print) 978-3-85676-419-7 ISBN (pdf) 978-3-85676-465-4 https://doi.org/10.54872/gta/4654 Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND gta Verlag Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Department of Architecture Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture Anne Kockelkorn, Susanne Schindler, and Rebekka Hirschberg with Gina Rauschtenberger and Alexia Zeller 2 Public Opinion with Gina Rauschtenberger and Alexia Zeller To grow beyond individual initiatives, cooperatives need political and financial support, which, in a democracy, is dependent on public opinion. In Zurich, pro-cooperative policies won important political victories in the 1920s, 1940s, and 1990s, resulting in a significant increase in the production of cooperative housing. Instruments 72 Cooperative Conditions Referendum and popular initiative The Swiss political system combines elements of representational and direct democracy.1 For the latter, the referendum ( Volksabstimmung) is a key tool. A referendum asks voters to directly approve or reject a particular question or law at the ballot box; if approved, the measure becomes law. Swiss voters are called to approve or reject referenda on average four times a year. Referenda exist at all three jurisdictional levels (federal, cantonal, municipal) and can come about in three ways: as mandatory referendum, optional referendum, or popular initiative. Constitutional changes proposed by a legislature require a mandatory referendum (obligatorisches Referendum). In certain municipal or cantonal jurisdictions, referenda are also required to approve budgetary motions and land-use changes that pertain to housing and zoning. If citizens oppose a law already passed by a legislature, they can initiate a second type of vote, the optional referendum (fakultatives Referendum) to recall that law. At the federal level, this currently requires collecting fifty thousand signatures within one hundred days of the law’s publication. A third type of vote results from popular initiatives ( Volksinitiative) on any matter of concern; for example, the affordability of housing. In 2011, 75 percent of voters in the City of Zurich approved a referendum, which resulted from three separate popular initiatives, demanding that by 2050 one-third of all dwellings be gemeinnützig. [Figure 2.1] In the City of Zurich, a popular initiative must be submitted in written form and be signed by at least three thousand voters within six months.2 At the federal level, a petition requires one hundred thousand signatures to be collected within eighteen months to move forward. Even if only 11 percent of popular initiatives at the federal level have been approved since 1891, the practice shapes the legislative agenda.3 Switzerland is one of the world’s oldest continuously functioning democracies.4 The evolution from the agrarian citizens’ assemblies (Landsgemeinden) of the Old Swiss Confederacy to the present-day protocols of a nation-state set up in 1848 involved repeated and contested revisions. The resulting political institutions — including their support for and overlap with cooperative organizations — have enjoyed remarkable stability. General strikes or protests are rare. A three-day, nation-wide strike in November 1918 was an exceptional event. [Figure 2.2] In the words of economic historian Jakob Tanner, the tools of direct democracy contribute to this stability, functioning as a kind of “pressure valve” for dissent.5 That is, the ability to launch popular initiatives and to recall laws gives citizens ample ways to voice their opinions within, rather than in opposition to, the system. 73 Public Opinion 1893 First urban expansion of the City of Zurich 1896 First inquiry into housing conditions in Zurich 1902 Canton of Zurich requires Zürcher Kantonalbank to lend to cooperatives 1907 City of Zurich charter revision declares housing a municipal responsibility 1910 City of Zurich adopts resolution to support nonprofit housing cooperatives and sets equity requirement at 10 percent 1918 Federal government introduces housing subsidies 1919 Canton of Zurich stipulates cost rent for all housing developers 1924 City of Zurich lowers equity requirement for cooperatives to 6 percent 1934 Second urban expansion of the City of Zurich 1942 Federal government expands subsidies for housing 1950 Successful referendum ends federal subsidies for housing 1972 New federal housing subsidies introduced 1990 Federal government establishes the bond-issuing cooperative EGW 1999 City of Zurich launches a program to build 10,000 apartments in 10 years 2001 Canton of Zurich commits to continued support of nonprofit housing 2003 Federal government establishes Fonds de Roulement 2011 Successful popular initiative obliges the City of Zurich to ensure 33 percent nonprofit housing by 2050 2020 Failed initiative to oblige all Swiss municipalities to ensure 10 percent nonprofit housing 2.1 1900 Influential political decisions and number of new dwelling units built by cooperative, municipal, and other developers in Zurich, 1993–2022 1910 Cooperative housing Municipal housing Housing by other developers 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 But the tools of direct democracy do not per se empower the disenfranchised. They can be wielded by the already enfranchised against those who are still without full civil and political rights. For example, Swiss women were granted the vote only in 1971.6 2.2 Demonstrators confront mounted police in central Zurich during a national strike at a time of hunger, rampant inflation, a flu epidemic, and a severe lack of housing, 1918 Survey or report In housing policy and research, a survey or report refers to an inquiry into the socioeconomic conditions of housing. It is generally written by a group of experts commissioned by a public entity or philanthropic organization. Its normative power derives from the presumed objectivity of scientific evidence and allows policymakers to argue for or against public-sector involvement in housing. In Switzerland, surveys of citizens’ living conditions began in the mid-eighteenth century amid attempts to understand causes of poverty. By the nineteenth century, surveys and reports on social conditions (Sozialenqueten) delivered the necessary data for governmental authorities’ early welfare programs. Labor conditions in factories and workers’ living conditions were often at the center of these inquiries. In 1877, Switzerland passed its first factories law (eidgenössisches Fabrikgesetz) limiting the number of working hours per day and restricting child labor. By the late nineteenth century, infectious diseases and hygiene in the country’s cities moved to center stage.7 In 1896, the City of Zurich commissioned the first 76 Cooperative Conditions inquiry on the sanitary conditions of industrial workers’ housing. The study paved the way for the municipality to define housing as a public-sector responsibility in its 1907 charter revision; voters approved the revision in a referendum. [Figure 2.3] The revised charter was the first to define housing as a matter of public concern and as worthy of public-sector support.8 Today, statistical data collected by government agencies have largely replaced surveys and reports. However, research findings by 2.3 77 Special issue of the daily Tagblatt der Stadt Zürich for the municipal referendum that paved the way for public support of housing, 1907 Public Opinion private consultants can still be critical in shaping public opinion and governmental policies on housing. In 2001, for example, the Canton of Zurich asked real estate consultancy Wüest Partner and research institute econcept to evaluate the canton’s financial assistance to housing construction. This occurred against the background of a widespread political shift away from such support and toward marketbased options. Defying expectations, the authors concluded that governmental investment in housing, whether municipal or gemeinnützig, was not only financially sustainable and promoted social integration but saved taxpayers 22 million Swiss francs (CHF) a year.9 The report legitimated the canton’s continued financial support of housing.10 It also asserted that policies of Gemeinnützigkeit contribute both to the aspirational and the economic dimensions of public value. Design standards Design standards are specifications describing the physical aspects, performance, and use of dwellings. Traditionally, they included specifications pertaining to their size, structural stability, sanitary equipment, or materials. More recently, considerations pertaining to accessibility, noise transmission, and energy efficiency have been added. Design standards have been in existence as conventions or codes since the earliest form of human settlement to maintain a certain social order or prevent destruction of life and property, for instance by fire. Today’s building code regulations for housing originated in mid-nineteenth-century industrializing cities as a response to hygienic and disciplinary concerns. Building codes overlap with zoning but differ in their focus on built structures rather than on questions of land use. As a regulatory tool, housing design standards range from recommendations to requirements. Recommendations are voluntary and generally serve as guidelines for both developing and evaluating a design proposal. Requirements, in contrast, are mandatory; some apply to all housing, others only to housing programs receiving public support. All housing is subject to the design requirements formulated in the cantonal planning and building act (Planungs- und Baugesetz, or PBG) first adopted in 1893, reissued in 1975. An example of design recommendations that come into play with cooperatives is the housing evaluation system (Wohnungs-Bewertungs-System, or WBS). [Figure 2.4] This matrix system has been used since 1975 by the federal office for housing (Bundesamt für Wohnungswesen, or BWO) to evaluate projects submitted for federal financial support.11 Design standards are generally developed by experts within governmental agencies in consultation with external stakeholders. 78 Cooperative Conditions Nonetheless, they codify a societal consensus — public opinion — on what constitutes an adequate dwelling at a given moment. In defining a bedroom’s maximum floor area or minimum ceiling height, in describing the level of daylight or the kinds of shared spaces to be provided, design standards thus describe a societal norm that legitimizes the public support that cooperatives need to thrive. 2.4 79 Haus A cluster typology, cited as an exemplary floor plan for “Flexible Forms of Living” in the federal design guidelines WBS, 2015 Public Opinion Debating the Adequate Home A long tradition of cooperative enterprise and the three instruments outlined above have all contributed to a largely favorable public opinion of cooperative housing in Zurich today. Nonetheless, the question of whether and how the state — representing the larger public interest — should provide financial and other support to cooperatives resurfaces again and again. Housing cooperatives have successfully navigated this debate because they are considered to be, even in the words of the programs themselves, publicly supported or assisted (gefördert; noun form Förderung) but not subsidized (subventioniert; noun form Subvention). For while Förderung implies creating favorable conditions for a set of players who are then left to sustain themselves, Subvention implies direct and potentially ongoing spending. This difference is critical to understanding why cooperative housing in Zurich has enjoyed the favorable public opinion required to grow to scale. The varying concepts of assistance and subsidy have also impacted the form of housing; namely, through the design standards that codify what size, amenities, and level of quality are adequate for housing. Subsidies and standards The question of what constitutes “subsidies” is contested by both economists and policymakers. For some, any state action on behalf of a desired policy outcome — whether through indirect tax incentives or through direct cash payments — means an undesirable skewing of the imagined free market. For others, state intervention is indispensable to achieve certain societal goals, including the provision of health care, education, and housing.12 Cooperative housing in Zurich would not be what it is without state intervention and public support — whether that support is called a “subsidy” or not. This support, including financial assistance, has been acceptable to conservatives, generally opposed to state intervention, because it has been constructed in ways that elide the widespread understanding of subsidies as direct funding streams. Rather, state support for cooperatives is provided through indirect measures and without legally or financially framing cooperatives as being treated in a preferential manner. This political balancing act between progressive and conservative ideologies goes back over a hundred years. In 1907, voters in the City of Zurich approved the charter revision that paved the way for 80 Cooperative Conditions 2.5 Campaign poster for social democrat Emil Klöti, Zurich municipal elections, 1933 the public support of housing; in 1918, the Canton of Zurich launched its first housing assistance program.13 As historian Daniel Kurz explains, social democrat Emil Klöti, Zurich’s mayor from 1928 to 1941 and a big champion of cooperatives, “understood how to turn nonprofit [gemeinnützig] housing into a matter of broad public concern, which Christian social, democratic, and liberal forces could agree to as well. He and others succeeded in foregrounding the quasinonpartisan, civic value of nonprofit housing.” 14 Before becoming mayor, Klöti was the first president of the federation of housing cooperatives (today: Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz) founded in 1919.15 [Figure 2.5] 81 Public Opinion Public support has taken a variety of forms, and form, as discussed above, matters. Loans are largely provided not by a state agency but by banks, including Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), at conventional interest rates. The state mainly insures loans carrying a higher risk.16 Financing becomes accessible thanks to the low equity threshold mandated by the City of Zurich, not direct public investment. [4. Equity, p. 141] Taxes on cooperatives, whether on income, assets, or real estate, are no different from those levied on other businesses, despite cooperatives’ status as gemeinnützig. This is in contrast to other Western nations, where the primary financial benefit of a non- or limited-profit status is tax exemption. Rents are not calculated according to household income, which would require additional subsidies to make a project feasible, but are calculated to cover cost and thus are equal for all residents. [3. Nonspeculation, p. 106] Together, these forms of public support have created conditions favorable to cooperatives. What is critical politically is that the conditions seem universal, at least for Swiss citizens, rather than preferential, and that the support is not considered a subsidy. This, in turn, exempts Zurich’s housing cooperatives from having to abide by income restrictions or other means testing when selecting their residents, creating a model that is, in theory, open to all. It makes cooperatives autonomous and removes the stigmas often associated with income-restricted “social housing” or “public housing.” With respect to the question of design standards, cooperatives must meet the building regulations required of all residential development as formulated in the cantonal planning and building act. For example, a room must have a minimum surface area of 10 square meters and a minimum room height of 2.3 meters. However, when cooperative developments do include subsidized apartments — reserved for households of low income — they must conform to a set of more closely defined design standards established at the cantonal and federal levels. The cantonal housing assistance act (Wohnbauförderungsverordnung, or WBFV) sets minimum dimensions for rooms as well as maximum allowable development costs. The corresponding financial assistance, a zero-interest loan covering at most 20 percent of allowable development costs, is calculated on a pointsbased, quantitative system. This is designed to calibrate financial and spatial criteria between spatial minimums and development cost maximums.17 At the federal level, too, the amount of financial assistance is tied to achieving certain design standards and staying within maximum development costs. In contrast to the cantonal programs, however, the federal guidelines, known as the Wohnungs-Bewertungs-System (WBS), pertain to both income-restricted and cost-rent developments and are framed more qualitatively and less prescriptively. The 82 Cooperative Conditions current version, in effect since 2015, lists twenty-five criteria. Criterion K8, for example, asks for a gradient of publicness in outdoor spaces, while criterion K12 suggests building entrances be designed to further communication.18 Various financial programs base their funding logic on the WBS. The federal Fonds de Roulement, for example, is a revolving loan fund for cooperatives established in 2003. [5. Debt, p. 174] It requires developments to meet a minimum number of WBS points but offers to increase the loan amount if additional, aspirational goals are met.19 These goals currently prioritize design for accessibility and aging in place, as well as energy efficiency. Their specific certification criteria, included in the WBS point system, are developed by external industry groups.20 The financial incentives for complying with these additional certifications are powerful: for a noncertified design, the maximum loan amount is CHF 15,000 per dwelling. A fully certified proposal is eligible for four times that amount, or CHF 60,000 per dwelling. Regardless of whether cooperatives must comply with these or similar design standards, many do so voluntarily. In addition, many aim to achieve below-average per-person floor area use for ecological reasons; they do so while maintaining livability by, for instance, minimizing apartment size and maximizing shared space. They also pay close attention to managing their resources responsibly. Occupancy rules stipulate that the number of rooms a household is eligible for is the number of persons plus one, and residents agree to move should household size change.21 In this sense, then, cooperatives not only comply with but try to model design standards for others to follow. Cooperatives are subject to and redefine the standard: Neubühl, Hunziker Areal, and Zollhaus Zurich’s housing cooperatives must follow certain design standards to benefit from public support, but the relationship is not unidirectional. Cooperatives have actively reframed these standards through architectural experimentation. Three examples from across the last century help to make this point. An early example of this dynamic is the Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl, realized from 1928 to 1932 as an urban model of Neues Bauen: rowhouses and apartments planned for optimal solar orientation and cross-ventilation, built at right angles to the existing streets in a building type known as Zeilenbau. [Figure 2.6] Following modernist design doctrines, the buildings themselves minimize room dimensions and ceiling heights (to 2.3 meters) and have flat roofs. The applicable building code, however, dating to 1893, required all construc- 83 Public Opinion tion to be sited parallel to the street and ceiling heights to be 2.5 meters. Neubühl’s nonconforming aspects were realized only thanks to the direct intervention of the mayor, cooperative supporter Klöti. For the ceiling heights, a compromise was struck at 2.4 meters. The flat roofs required a compromise of a different kind. Due to the project’s novelty and associated structural risk, the city required the cooperative to put up 11 percent equity rather than the usual 6 percent.22 Soon after Neubühl, however, the Zeilenbau experiment became the guiding urban model. The idea characterizes several Siedlungen built in the 1930s, as in the Milchbuck and Allenmoos neighborhoods, as well as the planning for Zurich’s 1934 urban extension. In 1946, Zurich’s first zoning ordinance officially sanctioned Zeilenbau even when perpendicular to the street, along with other configurations of urban design that allowed more variation and a departure from the parcel and the perimeter block.23 [7. Zoning, p. 237] 2.6 Site plan and overview of housing types, Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl, 1928−1932 A more recent example of the interplay between standard and experiment is Haus A by Duplex Architekten for mehr als wohnen’s Hunziker Areal, developed from 2011 to 2015. Like Neubühl, the new neighborhood was on an urban periphery and intended as a testing ground for future living models.24 [5. Debt, p. 182; and 6. Land, p. 220] Duplex Architekten’s cluster apartments in Haus A combine five to seven one- and two-room individual units, each equipped with a bathroom and minimal kitchen. Organized in a nonorthogonal manner, they 84 Cooperative Conditions 2.7 Cluster apartment HochFoif WG at Haus A, Hunziker Areal, 2022 Shared spaces of the cluster apartment Private unit used by a young family Entrances storage room living room gong (dinner bell) play area with swing private kitchen (no stove due to fire regulation) cleaning supplies baby supplies juke box view to atrium, staircase, and other cluster apartments bathroom Hochfoif logo cloakroom kitchen dining room 85 Public Opinion music room / home office / crafting room create, between them, a sequence of separate yet interconnected spaces to be used by the cluster apartment’s residents to mingle, relax, read, gather, or entertain and made possible by a large, shared kitchen. [Figure 2.7] Like Neubühl, some of Hunziker Areal’s experiments were quickly codified. When it was completed, the Haus A cluster apartment typology was incorporated into the 2015 revision of the WBS. [See Figure 2.4] The glossary features the floor plan as exemplary for “Flexible Forms of Living” and to illustrate one of its twenty-five criteria, “Adaptability of Private Space.” 25 The inclusion of the cluster apartment marked a foundational shift in the concepts underpinning housing regulations, implicitly redefining who occupies housing — generally still described as a “family” ( Familie) — and how that social unit is conceived economically; generally still described as a “household” ( Haushalt).26 To realize the cluster idea, and thus further an epistemic shift in Swiss housing policy, Duplex had to navigate a set of existing, interrelated, and seemingly contradictory design standards.27 The regulatory acrobatics involved juggling the realms of fire safety, federal assistance, and tenant law. Per fire code, the cluster apartment had to be defined as a single dwelling unit or the spaces between the individual units would have been considered circulation areas, thus prohibiting furniture, which would obstruct the means of egress.28 The fire code also stipulated that a single stairway could serve at most 900 square meters per floor. Haus A measured roughly 1,000 square meters, thus requiring two means of egress.29 But to achieve community design, Duplex wanted to create a central staircase on which the residents of the buildings’ eleven cluster apartments could all interact. Accordingly, they hid a second staircase in the center of the larger cluster apartment’s floor plan. To qualify for federal financial assistance, however, Duplex had to argue in an opposite direction. Since an eleven-room cluster apartment (each individual unit counting as two or three rooms) is not eligible for federal assistance, it was declared to be two dwelling units — one with five and one with six rooms. The dashed line on the floor plan featured in the WBS guidelines attests to this legal distinction; in reality, there is no separation. Tenant law added another layer of tactical arrangement. Each cluster apartment, being per fire code a single apartment, had to have a single lease. Residents of the cluster apartment thus set up an association ( Verein) that holds the lease. The realization of this typological experiment required all parties involved to agree to a particular reading of existing regulations. Duplex’s cluster design was not the first of its kind among cooperatives, nor was the developer the first to encounter the legal and code challenges raised by the design. Kraftwerk 1 had pioneered large households in its Hardturm and Heizenholz projects. [1. An Idea of Sharing, 86 Cooperative Conditions 2.8 Temporary hall dwellings in a former industrial building in Zurich, 2017 p. 48; 4. Equity, p. 152] Rather, that the Duplex floor plan was taken up by the WBS attests to the extraordinary interplay between regulatory standards and design experimentation in shaping public opinion. The hall dwellings ( Hallenwohnen) at Zollhaus, the second realized project by the Kalkbreite cooperative, occupied since early 2021, are a final example of how cooperative housing has pushed the legal definition of an adequate dwelling. The project is located on a narrow site running along the train tracks just north of Zurich’s main station. In 2012, Kalkbreite was selected to purchase the site from the city and SBB Immobilien, the real estate arm of the Swiss railways, on the basis of its far-sighted programming: commercial and edu- 87 Public Opinion cational spaces, plus a range of apartment types for around 175 individuals, function as an urban infrastructure in this difficult location. One of the apartment types is the hall dwelling: a large, open, loft-like space 4.1 meters high in which preselected groups of residents can self-build their living environment. The idea was inspired by people who had informally lived and worked in former industrial buildings then lost to redevelopment. [Figure 2.8] Zollhaus aimed to provide an architectural form that would legalize self-building and coliving in a large open space, a counterproposal to eviction or displacement. [Figure 2.9] Initially, Enzmann Fischer had proposed two large hall dwellings, each with a floor area of roughly 300 square meters. However, to comply with the standards for fire protection, noise protection, and energy efficiency, the proposal had to be radically redesigned.30 In addition, the groups of residents selected on the basis of their proposals did not have the know-how to apply for permits for these self-build projects. The cooperative and architects changed strategy and started a second round, called Hallenwohnen 2.0, relaunching the application process for interested resident groups. The architects proceeded to subdivide the area into eight independent dwelling units, each equipped with a sanitary unit and kitchen. The partition walls between the units were to be realized in wood to facilitate their possible removal by residents. This was then approved and a building permit granted. [Figure 2.10] 0 2.9 88 10 20 m Zollhaus section showing hall dwellings situated on the third floor, 2015−2021 Cooperative Conditions 1 person 33.3 m2 CHF 1,090 CHF 9,000 4 persons 94 m2 CHF 2,590 CHF 24,000 5 persons 115.2 m2 CHF 3,120 CHF 11,000 2 persons 39.1 m2 CHF 1,290 CHF 10,000 2 persons 40 m2 CHF 1,310 CHF 10,000 5 persons 115.6 m2 CHF 3,320 CHF 30,000 4 persons 94.4 m2 CHF 2,740 CHF 25,000 2 persons 41.1 m2 CHF 1,390 CHF 11,000 2.10 Floor plan of hall dwellings with proposal for partitioning, as approved by the authorities, Zollhaus, 2019 Partitions that can be omitted in consultation with project management Fixed installations (bathrooms, shafts) Indicated costs show monthly cost rent and required share equity. M 115 m2 XL 262 m2 S 40 m2 L 155 m2 2.11 89 Floor plan of hall dwellings as realized, Zollhaus, 2021 Public Opinion 2.12 Kitchen with mobile furniture in the XL hall dwelling zurwollke e.V., Zollhaus, 2020 The process of realizing the selected resident group’s ideas then took place within a legal gray zone.31 Residents were free to take out the partition walls and build rooms with lower than permissible ceiling heights, smaller than allowable floor areas, or less daylight than is legally permissible. This happened in the understanding that the residents would return the unit to its original condition when they moved out. Today, after conceiving of two halls and obtaining a permit for eight, residents now live in four hall dwellings. One is large and, at roughly 262 square meters, close to the originally envisioned size; three are smaller and divide roughly 310 square meters among them.32 [Figures 2.11–2.13] How the experiences at Zollhaus will inform building regulations to allow for more self-building within unfinished shells remains to be seen. In the meantime, the idea has been taken up by Kraftwerk 1 under the term “unfinished living” (Rohbauwohnen) in its ongoing project at Koch-Areal. In the push and pull between standard and experimental housing, the question of dwelling size remains a central through line. In the Neubühl era, the “minimum subsistence level” was a social, architectural, and financial goal, and a rowhouse with three bedrooms measured 77.6 square meters. [See Figure 2.6] In the 1950s, these standards increased slightly. By the early 2000s, however, cooperative housing deliberately departed from this ideal; the goal shifted to building apartments that would attract middle-class families with children. An apartment with three bedrooms (or, in the Swiss housing lexicon, 90 Cooperative Conditions with 4 to 4.5 rooms) was now 100−115 square meters in size.33 Twenty years later, the pendulum is swinging back again, to as little as 90 square meters.34 Designing with less floor area, as architect Raphael Frei argues, is a welcome challenge for architects seeking to respond in meaningful ways to both land scarcity and the need to reduce architecture’s carbon footprint. At the same time, he points out, the larger, deeper building footprints that have gained currency — as at Hunziker Areal — and the associated floor plans that no longer assign specific functions to specific rooms make implementing smaller apartments difficult.35 The recent turn back from large to small has multiple other explanations, however. As Kurz points out, 2.13 91 Individual units in the XL hall dwelling zurwollke e.V., Zollhaus, 2021 Public Opinion new and larger apartments inevitably have higher rents, and their indeterminate floor plans are impractical for residents seeking multiple, separate rooms; for instance, part-time families or extended households.36 Whether and how the state should support housing is a question that is continually debated. Public opinion on the matter and on what type of housing is worthy of support — standard or experimental — shifts along with changes in inflation, rent, the cost of living, housing shortage, or dissatisfaction with the lifestyles offered by existing housing stock. Design standards — the codification of an adequate dwelling — mark a momentary consensus in this intersection of broader public opinion and the public support of housing. In promoting the necessary and ongoing debate around what constitutes an adequate dwelling, Zurich’s housing cooperatives have played and will continue to play a central role through experiments with urban configurations like the Zeilenbau, household forms like the cluster, or selfbuilding within the highly professionalized Swiss construction industry. Discussion: The tension between gemeinnützig and preisgünstig in housing design standards Direct democracy, surveys and reports, and design standards have their limits in shaping public opinion. While the cooperative model may, in theory, be politically neutral and acceptable to conservatives, cooperative housing in general has found and continues to find its most active support among left-wing administrations. Beyond the country’s cities, it has had a harder time, a fact that is periodically confirmed at the ballot box. In 2020, for example, 57 percent of voters, largely in rural areas, rejected the popular initiative More Affordable Homes (Mehr bezahlbare Wohnungen). [Figure 2.14] The measure had proposed that 10 percent of all housing in Switzerland be gemeinnützig, facilitated through a series of new financial and regulatory tools, including a right of first refusal for municipalities and cantons on all real estate sales.37 Even in Zurich, support for housing cooperatives is not unanimous. In such a dried-out rental market, cooperatives must continuously refute charges of opaque access criteria in selecting residents as they try to consider both the suitability of residents for a community and their housing needs.38 Opinions are also shifting with respect to the argument that cooperatives are assisted but not subsidized. Zurich cooperatives — while not considered subsidized and thus free of income restrictions — are under increasing pressure to deliver housing to those who cannot afford cost rent, since cost rent in new construction is no longer affordable for about one-third of the population.39 These households require subsidies, and the subsidies come with restrictions. 92 Cooperative Conditions At Koch-Areal, for example, the city mandated that Allgemeine Baugenossenschaft Zürich (ABZ) and Kraftwerk 1, as a condition to obtain the land lease, each provide 30 percent of their new dwellings to lowerincome households. The city enforced this mandate by obliging the cooperatives to take on a zero-interest loan jointly issued by the city and canton (Subventionsdarlehen). [5.Debt, p.173] ABZ and Kraftwerk 1 had no need for this loan; they could have easily financed the project in other ways. Thus, the subsidies were considered “more curse than blessing” given the increased administrative burden that came with them.40 The pressure to be more economically inclusive has also resulted from voter mandates expressed in popular initiatives, such as the vote in late 2011 obliging the city to ensure that one-third of all dwelling units are gemeinnützig by 2050.41 But circumstances change: while gemeinnützig and cost rent may, in 2011, have equated to affordable rents for most, just ten years later this was no longer the case, and public policy has since shifted from ensuring that dwellings are gemeinnützig to ensuring that they are preisgünstig (low-priced). For cooperatives, the obligation to take on municipal subsidies makes them less autonomous from and more embedded within the state, in turn affecting how they are perceived by the public.42 At the larger scale of Zurich’s housing production, this recent shift in public opinion toward prioritizing low rents may complicate cooperatives’ efforts to engage in design experiments like Hunziker Areal and Zollhaus that have contributed to the ongoing redefinition of the adequate home. 2.14 93 Banner on the Zollhaus construction site for the popular initiative More Affordable Housing, 2020 Public Opinion In Zurich, surveys and reports have been instrumental in shaping public opinion and public policy on housing since the late nineteenth century. A recent, noteworthy example of how reports can lead to unexpected results is the 2001 evaluation of the efficacy of cantonal housing assistance by Wüest Partner and econcept. It was commissioned in a political climate set on reducing public support for housing. The report, however, affirmed that policies of Gemeinnützigkeit create economically measurable public value. As a consequence, the public sector continued its support of cooperatives. The question of what constitutes public value in housing policies has been continually debated, contested, and revised by citizens and elected officials in part through referenda. Swiss voters are called to the polls every three months; ballot measures on land-use policy and housing appear every few years. These directly impact cooperative housing production. Public opinion, public policy, and architecture are mediated through design standards and housing regulations issued by public-sector entities. Zurich’s cooperatives, because they are gemeinnützig, must adhere to both federal design standards and cantonal housing regulations. As such, they, too, are a product of societal consensus. 94 Cooperative Conditions However, public opinion can be swayed by the tangibility of architecture. Experiments by cooperatives have often been at the forefront of this ongoing negotiation. A striking example is the highly experimental cluster floor plan designed by Duplex Architekten for Hunziker Areal in Zurich, which was included in federal design guidelines in the year of the project’s realization. Its inclusion signified an epochal shift: a move beyond the nuclear family as the normative household model. Given rising land prices and interest rates, the financial basis of cooperative housing production and cost rent has dramatically shifted in the past decade. The pressure to provide housing that is affordable to lower-income households affects the debate around what constitutes an adequate dwelling. It has also turned cooperatives into involuntary providers of subsidized, income-restricted housing. 95 Public Opinion 1 2 3 In a representational democracy, citizens elect candidates to represent them in legislative bodies. These representatives are vested with the power to make decisions (on laws or budgets) on behalf of their constituents. In a direct democracy, citizens are empowered to directly vote on laws or budgets. Many democracies combine elements of both. “Politische Rechte in der Stadt Zürich,” Stadt Zürich, Politik und Recht, https:// www.stadt-zuerich.ch/portal/de/index/ politik_u_recht/abstimmungen_u_wahlen/ politische_rechte.html#initiative_und_ referendum (accessed June 3, 2023). Data on popular initiatives and their outcomes, as compiled by the Federal Chancellery, are available at “Volksabstimmungen,” Bundeskanzlei, https:// www.bk.admin.ch/bk/de/ home/politischerechte/volksabstimmungen.html (accessed July 31, 2023). A good summary is available at Wikipedia, s.v. “Volksinitiative (Schweiz),” last updated June 19, 2023, https://de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Volksinitiative_(Schweiz) (accessed August 28, 2024). 4 See, for example, “Mapped: The World’s Oldest Democracies,” World Economic Forum, August 8, 2019, https://www. weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/countriesare-the- worlds-oldest-democracies/ (accessed November 1, 2022). 5 Jakob Tanner, interview, Zurich, July 11, 2022. He used the term “Ventilorganisation des Staates” to describe Switzerlands’ institutional landscape of direct democracy. 6 For more on the history of women’s suffrage in Switzerland, see 1. An Idea of Sharing, note 34. 7 The information in this paragraph is largely based on Thomas Busset, “Sozialenqueten,” in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, March 2, 2011. 8 Surveyors commented on the unexpected camaraderie among residents. This insight into the surveyors’ bias reveals that those who conduct surveys are rarely objective or neutral. HansPeter Bärtschi, “Die Lebensverhältnisse der Schweizer Arbeiter um 1900,” Gewerkschaftliche Rundschau: Monatsschrift 96 des Schweizerischen Gewerkschaftsbundes 75, no. 4 (1983), 118−24, https:// doi.org/10.5169/seals-355135.& 9 econcept for the AWA Kanton Zürich, Fachstelle für Wohnbauförderung, Nutzen und Zusatznutzen der Wohnbauförderung und des gemeinnützigen Wohnungsbaus für die Gemeinwesen (Zurich: econcept AG, September 2001). 10 A concise summary of Swiss housing policy toward cooperatives is provided in Jennifer Duyne Barenstein and Philippe Koch, “Service Providers or Civil Society Activists? The Dilemmas of Cooperative Housing Associations in Switzerland,” Housing Studies, forthcoming. 11 The WBS has been updated every ten to fifteen years. For more on its development and revisions (1975, 1986, 2000, 2015), see “Über WBS: Geschichte,” Bundesamt für Wohnungswesen (BWO), Wohnungs-Bewertungs-System (WBS), https://www.wbs.admin.ch/de/ueber-wbs/ geschichte (accessed November 26, 2022). 12 For discussions of what constitutes a “subsidy” in housing, see Marietta E. A. Haffner and Michael J. Oxley, “Housing Subsidies: Definitions and Comparisons,” Housing Studies 14, no. 2 (1999), 145−62, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/ 02673039982894; Judith Yates, “Housing Subsidies,” in David F. Clapham, William A.V. Clark, and Kenneth Gibb, eds., The SAGE Handbook of Housing Studies (London: SAGE, 2012), 397−418. 13 Weissgrund AG and Kanton Zürich, Fachstelle Wohnbauförderung, 100 Jahre kantonale Wohnbauförderung (Zurich: Kanton Zürich, 2018). 14 “Emil Klöti verstand es, den gemeinnützigen Wohnungsbau zu einem breit abgestützten öffentlichen Anliegen zu machen, dem auch christlichsoziale, demokratische und freisinnige Kräfte zustimmten. Dies gelang, weil Klöti und andere den quasi überparteilichen, staatsbürgerlichen Wert des gemeinnützigen Wohnungsbaus in den Vordergrund stellten.” Daniel Kurz, Die Disziplinierung der Stadt: Moderner Städtebau in Zürich 1900 bis 1940 (Zurich: gta Verlag, 2021 [2008]), 320. Cooperative Conditions 15 “Geschichte 1919−2019,” Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz, https://www.wbg100jahre.ch/geschichte/ (accessed June 2, 2023). The federation itself was successful in shaping public opinion through the publication of its periodical Wohnen, started in 1926. Today, nine issues of Wohnen are published every year. 16 17 18 Direct public loans to cooperatives do exist. In 1924, the City of Zurich decided to lend to cooperatives directly, on favorable conditions, and did so until the city’s pension fund was turned into an independent public law institution in 2003. To encourage low-income housing, the City of Zurich together with the Canton of Zurich has offered additional loans for the construction of subsidized apartments (Subventionsdarlehen) since the 1940s. See 4. Equity / Municipal resolution for limited equity, p. 141; and 5. Debt / Instruments, p. 169. See “Wohnbauförderung,” Kanton Zürich, https://www.zh.ch/de/soziales/ wohnbaufoerderung.html (accessed September 7, 2022). For how the municipal level refers to federal and cantonal standards, see “Wohnbauförderung,” Stadt Zürich, Finanzdepartement, https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/fd/de/index/ wohnen-und-gewerbe/wohnbaufoerderung. html (accessed September 1, 2022). 21 97 22 Ueli Marbach and Arthur Rüegg, Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl 1928−1932: Ihre Entstehung und Erneuerung (Zurich: gta Verlag, 1990), 28, 34. For the resulting debate among architects on the need to reform design standards, see P.M., “Zürcher Kunstchronik,” Das Werk 18, no. 10 (1931), xxxiii–xxxvii; “Die Werkbundsiedlung ‘Neubühl’ in Zürich- Wollishofen,” Schweizerische Bauzeitung 97/98, no. 12 (1931), 141−50, https://doi.org/ 10.5169/seals-44748.& 23 Daniel Kurz (architectural historian), email to Rebekka Hirschberg, October 2, 2022. For more on the planning for the Milchbuck and Allenmoos neighborhoods, see Kurz, Die Disziplinierung der Stadt, 342−74. 24 Given that it was a collaborative effort by Zurich’s housing cooperatives on the occasion of the one-hundred-year anniversary of the cooperative model, Hunziker Areal has been widely published. For the official documentation of the planning process and individual architectural projects, see Margrit Hugentobler, Andreas Hofer, and Pia Simmendinger, eds., More than Housing: Cooperative Planning — A Case Study in Zürich (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2015). For detailed discussion of Duplex Architekten’s roles as the site’s master planners and architects of two buildings, see Ludovic Balland and Nele Dechmann, eds., Duplex Architekten: Wohnungsbau neu denken (Zurich: Park Books, 2021). BWO, Wohnbauten planen, beurteilen und vergleichen: Wohnungs-BewertungsSystem WBS, Ausgabe 2015 (Grenchen: BWO, 2015), 40−41, 48−49. 19 “Fonds de Roulement (FdR),” Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz, https:// www.wbg-schweiz.ch/dienstleistungen/ finanzierung/ fonds_de_roulement (accessed September 7, 2022). 20 Zürich: Kennzahlen zu Wohnungsangebot, Mieten und Bewohnerschaft (Zurich: Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz, Regionalverband Zürich, December 2021), 7. The Fonds de Roulement standards refer to certifications by industry groups, including the nonprofit Living Every Age (LEA), https://www.lea- label.ch/de/ lea-label/zertifikatsstufen/; and Minergie, https://www.minergie.com/. As a result, residents of cooperatives in the City of Zurich use an average of 35 square meters per person, which is seven square meters less than in the private sector. Barbara Müller and Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz, Regionalverband Zürich, Gemeinnütziges Wohnen in Stadt und Kanton 25 “Flexible Wohnformen” and “K22 Anpassungsfähigkeit des privaten Raums,” in BWO, Wohnbauten planen, beurteilen und vergleichen, 20−21, 70−71. 26 Wohnbauförderungsverordnung (WBFV), § 13, Art. 3. 27 The information in the following analysis is based on Anne Kaestle, interview, Zurich, February 21, 2020. 28 Had the individual units been considered separate dwelling units, the cluster would have been considered a lodging Public Opinion establishment (Beherbergungsbetrieb), which would have made it subject to a different set of codes and requirements. 29 These regulations are defined by the association of cantonal building insurance companies, or Vereinigung Kantonaler Gebäudeversicherungen, and refer to the norms of the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA). The numbers have since changed. Anne Kaestle, email to Susanne Schindler, December 7, 2022. 30 Philipp Fischer, interview, Zurich, March 12, 2020. 31 Andreas Billeter (Kalkbreite project manager), phone call with Rebekka Hirschberg, October 28, 2022. 32 33 34 98 These descriptions of the planning and permitting processes are based on Billeter, phone call, and Maryam Khatibi, “A Socio-spatial Approach to the First Legal Hall Dwelling Setting in Switzerland: The Case Study of Hallenwohnen in Zurich,” Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 38 (2022), 979−98, https://doi.org/ 10.1007/ s10901022-09980- y; Paul Knüsel, “Mit eigenen Ideen und einer Motorsäge einziehen,” espazium, November 2, 2020, https:// www.espazium.ch/ de/aktuelles/miteigenen-ideen-und-einer-motorsaegeeinziehen (accessed October 28, 2022); Axel Simon, “Gezähmte Wohnträume,” Hochparterre 32, no. 6−7 (2019), 34−39; “Anders wohnen — Eine Wohngemeinschaft in der Gewerbehalle,” SRF Dok, July 30, 2020, video, 49:36, https://www. youtube.com/ watch?v=DAls4HZfXfg (accessed December 22, 2022). A half room typically refers to a dining area or a kitchen connected to a living room. Floor areas are taken from the catalog of case studies realized from 2007 to 2015, each shown with relevant data about the conditions before and after redevelopment. See Stadt Zürich, Amt für Städtebau, DICHTER: Eine Dokumentation der baulichen Veränderung in Zürich — 30 Beispiele (Zurich: Stadt Zürich, 2015 [2012]). pool Architekten has planned an 84-square-meter, 3.5-room apartment for mehr als wohnen at Hobelwerk in Winterthur. It can also function as a fourroom apartment. However, within the framework of the Wohnbauförderung, this is too small to be counted as a four-room apartment, which is required to have a minimum surface area of 90 square meters. Raphael Frei, email to Susanne Schindler, December 7, 2022; Kanton Zürich, Volkswirtschaftsdirektion, “Bauliche Anforderung an den Mietwohnungsbau, Wohnbauförderung Merkblatt 03,” May 2017. 35 Raphael Frei and Andreas Sonderegger, interview, Zurich, February 20, 2020. 36 Daniel Kurz, “Zweifel am Ersatzneubau: Kritische Fragen zu einer Verdichtungsstrategie,” Werk Bauen und Wohnen 107, no. 5 (2020), 36−39. 37 As is typical with popular initiatives, the Federal Council and Federal Assembly issue recommendations to voters. For this initiative, submitted in 2016, both recommended a rejection. In recognizing the urgency of housing affordability, however, the Federal Council proposed adding CHF 250 million to the Fonds de Roulement. This was approved by the Federal Assembly in late 2019, in advance of the actual vote in February 2020. For a summary of the process and recommendations, see “Volksinitiative ‘Mehr bezahlbare Wohnungen,’” BWO, https://www.bwo. admin.ch/ bwo/de/home/wohnungspolitik/ wohnungspolitik-bund/volksinitative_mehr_ bezahlbare_wohnungen.html (accessed December 3, 2022). 38 In April 2015, two newspaper articles criticized cooperatives as “geschlossene Gesellschaften,” emphasizing their decision not to keep waiting lists anymore: Beat Metzler, “Geschlossene Gesellschaften,” Tagesanzeiger, April 8, 2015; Lucien Scherrer, “Abschied vom bequemen Freisinn,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, April 14, 2015. For the federation’s reaction, see Stefan Weber-Aich, “Sind Genossenschaften geschlossene Gesellschaften?” Wohnbaugenossenschaften Schweiz, Regionalverband Zürich, https://www.wbg-zh.ch/news/sindgenossenschaften-geschlossenegesellschaften/ (accessed June 2, 2023). 39 Astrid Heymann and Kuno Gurtner, interview, Zurich, July 12, 2022. 40 Martin Uebelhart, online interview, September 2, 2022. Cooperative Conditions The initiative Affordable Apartments for Zurich (Bezahlbare Wohnungen für Zürich) was adopted with 75 percent of the vote. The text the electorate voted on was a counterproposal by the city parliament (Gemeinderat) in response to three popular initiatives that had been submitted on the matter of housing affordability. For the full text of the initiative, see Stadt Zürich, Stadtrat, Zürich stimmt ab 27.11.2011 (Zurich: Stadt Zürich, September 21, 2011). 41 42 On the tension between autonomy and embeddedness, see Sukumar Ganapati, “Enabling Housing Cooperatives: Policy Lessons from Sweden, India and the United States.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34, no. 2 (2010), 365−80, https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1468-2427.2010.00906.x. Text Credits This chapter draws on research and ideas developed by Gina Rauschtenberger and Alexia Zeller in a seminar paper in the spring of 2020, in particular identifying the historic connection between Huldrych Zwingli’s theology and the Swiss cooperative sector and tracing key housing referenda and initiatives. Image Credits pp. 68–70 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10, 2.11 2.12, 2.13 2.14 99 Private gardens and collective spaces, Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl, 2020. Photographs: Kristin Sasama Visualization: Monobloque. Data sources: Statistisches Amt der Stadt Zürich, Wohnungsbaupolitik der Stadt Zürich 1907−1937, no. 46 (Zurich: Statistik der Stadt Zürich, 1938); Michael Böniger and Statistik Stadt Zürich, eds., 4 × 25: Günstig wohnen in Zürich (Zurich: Statistik Stadt Zürich, 2009); Statistik Stadt Zürich, “Kapitel 9: Bau- und Wohnungswesen,” in Statistisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Zürich (Zurich: Stadt Zürich, March 2010); Statistik Stadt Zürich, “Fertigerstellte Wohnungen im Jahr nach Eigentumsart, Stadtkreis und Stadtquartier, seit 2010,” https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/prd/de/index/statistik/themen/bauen-wohnen/gebaeude-wohnungen/wohnungsbestand.html (accessed August 23, 2023); Dominique Boudet, ed., New Housing in Zurich: Typologies for a Changing Society (Zurich: Park Books, 2017) Photograph: Wilhelm Gallas / Baugeschichtliches Archiv der Stadt Zürich Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv (Ar 32.90.5) BWO, Wohnbauten planen, beurteilen und vergleichen: Wohnungs-Bewertungs-System WBS, Ausgabe 2015 (Grenchen: BWO, 2015) Schweizerisches Sozialarchiv (F Pe-0910) Stadt Zürich, Hochbauamt der Stadt Zürich, Kommunaler und gemeinnütziger Wohnungsbau (Zurich: Stadt Zürich, 1932) Drawing: Hsui-Ju Chang Film stills: Anders Wohnen — Eine Wohngemeinschaft in der Gewerbehalle, directed by Risa Chiappori, SRF Dok, 2020 Drawing: Enzmann Fischer Architekten Drawings: Enzmann Fischer Architekten, edited by Rebekka Hirschberg and Monobloque Photographs: Annett Landsmann Photograph: Reto Schlatter / Mieterverband Zürich Public Opinion