When it comes to the fate of the old town hall, emotions still boil in the Aschheim municipal council – even though supporters and opponents of demolishing the existing building and the following new building have come closer in the past few months. An application by the Free Voters to have the expert Karl-Heinz Voggenreiter from the engineering office of the same name make a current cost statement on Thursday evening in the Feststadl led to an exchange of blows in the committee. In the end, the request was rejected by a clear majority of 13 to eight votes. In addition to the Free Voters, only Green Councilor Sabine Maier voted for it.
More than three years ago, during an investigation, considerable deficiencies in the statics and fire protection of the old building were discovered. The administration had to be outsourced and has since been housed in an office building on Saturnstrasse. The decision to demolish the more than 100-year-old town hall on Ismaninger Straße and to erect a new building that also extends over the adjacent Sauter property was unanimously taken by the local council in 2019. But because the situation in the Aschheim municipal council changed significantly after the 2020 local elections, the debate about a possible future for the old town hall was resumed.
Above all, the Free Voters, who have seven seats and, together with the Greens, who immediately won four mandates, have a majority in the body, are campaigning for a restructuring. Mayor Thomas Glashauser and his eight-member CSU parliamentary group as well as the two representatives of the SPD are sticking to the plans for a new building. In order to pacify the situation, the administration had an appraisal drawn up in order to re-examine the costs of renovating the old building and to determine whether there would be enough space for the employees. At the beginning of the year, the expert Voggenreiter came to the conclusion that this was feasible; However, an additional new building would still have to be built so that Aschheim has enough offices and is equipped for the future as a growing community. Since then, the parliamentary groups have been thinking in a working group, and a final decision on how to proceed with the town hall is still pending.
The Free Voters apparently need more information: In their application, they advocated consulting Voggenreiter again. He should calculate how high the cost of renovating the old town hall building would be with minimal effort or taking into account the current energy standards, including the new building on the Sauter property, and comparing this with the expenses for demolition and new construction. It should also be examined how to proceed with the expansion of the underground car park: Should it be connected to the existing one, or should there be more space for the basement and instead a publicly accessible garage under the market square and synod square should be planned.
The reactions to this application were violent: SPD councilor Andreas Bichler described it as “pointless”, his CSU colleague Florian Meier as “nonsense”, who only delayed a decision – which provoked a loud counter-speech from the Free Voters. In the end they had to admit defeat. What will happen to the town hall remains unclear.