Excerpt:
A bylaw adopted by Hamburg's center-left parliament to allow temporary seizures of vacant buildings to overcome refugee accommodation shortages was slammed on Friday by the city's opposition free-market liberal FDP leader Katja Suding.
She told the German public radio channel Deutschlandradio Kultur that the bylaw amounted to a breach of property rights. She accused Hamburg's SPD-Greens coalition government of ignoring housing offers from citizens and rejected the argument that such accommodations would be insufficient for the number of asylum-seekers in the city, which is also one of Germany's 16 states.
Rent or purchase preferred
Interior Senator Michael Neumann said Friday that the city preferred to rent or purchase extra buildings as refugee shelters, but the bylaw gave it the additional power to make seizures if necessary.