Shock among local residents
City of Herten gives 174 people their apartments at the same time
The historic town center of Herten-Westerholt. 174 former residents have to look for a new home after they quit their apartment.
© Jochen Tack / Picture Alliance
174 residents from Herten in North Rhine-Westphalia have to look for a new apartment overnight. For more than 60 years, the city had let apartments on commercial sites without a permit.
This article first appeared on RTL.de.
In the beginning there was a banality: business people complained about children playing in an industrial park in Herten (North Rhine-Westphalia). But then it turned out that hundreds of people live there illegally. Partly for decades, but without knowing it. Because since the 1960s, commercially used buildings had been converted into apartments without a permit. Now the city says: 174 tenants have to get out of their apartments and look for a new home. Many are desperate.
People in the Westerholt industrial park didn’t know anything
Fear, anger and incomprehension prevail among the people in the Westerholt industrial park. The news that they should move out by summer 2022 hit them like a shock. Because how could they have suspected that their apartments were not even allowed to be inhabited there?
“We were shocked,” says the mother of little Emma Louise Hastigsputh. The family has lived here for nine years – under one roof with grandma. Nobody wants to leave here. “We never expected that. We made it beautiful now during the pandemic, made the garden beautiful, just as we always wanted it to be. Our daughter was born here, she grew up here.”
Herten: Residents don’t know where to go
Nina Ebert can no longer sleep at night. “I have a stomachache, and all of that before Christmas. You don’t know what to do.” Other residents don’t know what to do either. “I’m sick, my husband is sick. We moved down here three years ago because we can no longer climb stairs,” says Brigitte Pellmann. “Where should we go? There are no more apartments in Herten.”
According to the lawyer, the city is right
In fact, living in the commercial area is only permitted in exceptional cases, for example for the owner of a business or the caretaker. Lawyer Arndt Kempgens cannot understand that the buildings have been turned into apartments again and again in the last few decades. “A lot of people must have slept for a long time and intensely. But of course you have to say: If the building is in violation of building law, then that is not allowed through the use, but remains in violation of building law,” explains the lawyer.
City of Herten: Traffic in the industrial estate endangers children
There is a lot of traffic in the industrial park, which is dangerous for children playing, argues the city. It is true that “when setting the date to move out, the personal circumstances” are to be taken into account, as stated in a communication. But there is no question of people being able to stay in their apartments under certain circumstances.