The larger community needs more money if it wants to build its own apartments as planned. This is nothing new, because of these financing difficulties, the municipal building area of Vaterstetten Northwest was put on hold last year. According to Mayor Leonhard Spitzauer (CSU), better funding from the Free State is needed so that it can still be implemented in the foreseeable future. The head of the town hall has now written an open letter to his party colleague Christian Bernreiter, Minister for Housing, Construction and Transport.
“Communal housing construction will come to a complete standstill if your ministry does not improve the funding conditions and the funding pot is increased,” writes Spitzauer. He also calls for additional funds from the Free State, through which the development loans from the Bayerische Landesbank “are given to the municipalities at reduced interest rates”. Vaterstetten’s mayor refers to the Free State’s housing offensive and its goal of “a balanced and comprehensive package of measures for people with lower incomes from all sections of the population”.
The mayor expresses doubts about the planned housing project
But in view of the overall situation – Spitzauer cites higher construction costs here, by a third since 2019 in the current project and the increase in interest rates from one to three percent as well as requirements for accessibility, soundproofing and fire protection – he has his doubts that the community will buy their apartments really build: “In my view, given the circumstances, this will fail.”
Vaterstetten Northwest is one of the more extensive and lengthy projects in the larger community. The construction area is located in the north of the district of Vaterstetten on Dorfstrasse at the roundabout leading to Ottendichler Strasse. A small commercial area was initially planned here as part of the expansion of the town to the north and west, but there was criticism from the start that the area was too small and that it was also in the middle of a residential area. In 2018 it was decided to designate the commercial area a few hundred meters south-east between Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Strasse and Philipp-Maas-Weg.
The municipality prefers to build apartments instead of a commercial area
At the Ottendichler Kreisel, on the other hand, affordable apartments were to be built, and the building area was first presented almost three years ago. However, the majority of the municipal council fell out with the architectural office a little later, the contract was reassigned, and at the end of 2021 a slightly modified draft by the new architects was available. The reason given at the time was that this was more economical, and the number of apartments increased from almost 130 to 152.
However, the residential area will not be a bargain for the community, as Spitzauer now writes, costs of around 50 million euros can be expected. At the October meeting of the municipal council, the finance department calculated that after deducting all subsidies, the municipality would have to raise around 20.8 million euros of this itself. At that time, the committee decided to remove Vaterstetten Northwest from the budget planning. Actually, construction should have started at the end of this year.
Instead, other projects should be given priority, Spitzauer mentions geothermal energy in his letter to Bernreiter. In addition, the municipalities would have to deal with “a large number of additional tasks”, for example due to the refugee crises or the new legal entitlement to an all-day care place. Even if tax revenue has developed positively, the additional income has not kept pace with the new expenditure. Spitzauer’s appeal to the minister is therefore “to adapt the funding conditions to what is happening on the market”.