Bucharest needs 20,000 new homes a year to accommodate market demand and economic growth, and these could be developed on disused former industrial sites. Budapest and Warsaw, on the other hand, have a similar population to Bucharest, but are twice the size, despite not being at seismic risk.
“In Bucharest, there are still large areas of land occupied by former industrial sites, disused buildings, ruins and which allow for future development. These represent 7 percent of Bucharest’s surface area – 1579 hectares or 15.79 million sqm, i.e. half the surface area of an entire sector such as sector 2, which has 32 million sqm,” said Costin Bănică, head of energy & infrastructure advisory at iO Partners.
On the other hand, the density can be managed through infrastructure, and the public transport infrastructure in the capital is far undersized.