In terms of attractiveness, the Stephensonplatz at the Perlach S-Bahn station does not exactly play in the Champions League – and that’s putting it kindly. The joy was correspondingly high in many parts of the district, but so were the expectations, when the city council made a decision on the key data for the overplanning of the area in July. According to this, not only is a senior citizens’ housing complex to be built there, Stephensonplatz is also to be prettied up and the dilapidated station building renovated. An architectural competition was launched to collect ideas for implementation. As part of this process, the jury of experts was supposed to meet for its second session recently – actually.
Because the meeting was cancelled. The reason: The Stephensonplatz project is one of those building management procedures that could be affected by the accepted citizens’ request to “preserve green spaces”. The department for urban planning and building regulations has therefore temporarily put such construction projects on hold – which has caused criticism in the case of Stephensonplatz. “The stop only costs time and money,” complains Thomas Kauer (CSU), chairman of the Ramersdorf-Perlach district committee. “It doesn’t make sense to intervene in an ongoing process like this – especially not at this point.” After all, the planned redesign of Stephensonplatz mostly affects a gravel area and a parking lot, says Kauer. “There is only a small green area that is currently fenced in – and that is to be developed into a park.”
The Rosenhof Group from Ahrensburg near Hamburg – the investor who wants to build a senior citizens’ residential complex with 300 apartments including a nursing station with 55 beds on Stephensonplatz – is probably not very enthusiastic about the planning stop. When asked whether the citizens’ initiative endangers the company’s plans, Managing Director André Aue replies: “Project development has to take many framework conditions into account.” The city council’s decision to take over the citizens’ request is “a new parameter that is being weighed and taken into account”. Aue emphasizes: “The private property area is characterized by a fallow area that is currently neither usable nor publicly accessible. Our new building project envisages a significant upgrading of the quarter by creating high-quality green spaces with a high quality of life and revitalizing and upgrading Stephensonplatz.”
According to a citizens’ initiative, 800 green spaces and parks are to be preserved throughout Munich
According to a spokesman for the urban planning department, the entire planning area also includes an area that is designated as a general green area in the land use plan – “including a green area with some privately owned trees that are worth preserving”. Therefore, the project at Stephensonplatz is affected by the citizens’ initiative, which aims to preserve around 800 green spaces and parks in the city area. Immediately after the city council took over the demands at the beginning of March, city planning officer Elisabeth Merk said that this would “naturally” have an impact on the land use planning. Specifically, her department is currently preparing a collective resolution on all the procedures affected, which is to be presented to the planning committee in May.
The spokesman for the department announced that it would only be possible to say what effects the citizens’ initiative would have on the individual projects after this decision had been made. How many of the currently 100 ongoing building management procedures are affected is currently being determined. According to the wording of the citizens’ request, all projects are affected “in which a general green area shown in the land use plan is to be omitted or rescheduled,” said the spokesman. At the same time, he emphasizes: “Taking over the citizens’ request does not mean that there is an immediate, mandatory stop to planning, rather the city has room for maneuver and deliberation.”