The Ludwigsfeld settlement is an island far out from the city. In the southeast, the A99 ring road separates it from the rest of the Feldmoching-Hasenbergl district, in the east the B304 runs in the direction of Dachau, and in the north is MAN’s bus and truck test track. So far, 1,500 to 1,600 people have lived in around 830 apartments from two different construction phases. Now they get new neighbors. The planning committee of the city council approved a structural concept for the further construction of the settlement on Wednesday. 1,800 to 2,000 apartments for around 4,500 newcomers are to be built, including a high proportion of subsidized and affordable apartments based on the new guidelines for socially just land use. This will roughly quadruple the number of residents.
The Ludwigsfeld settlement came into being on the site of the Allach satellite camp, which once belonged to the Dachau concentration camp. Forced laborers and prisoners of war had to toil there. After the liberation in 1945, many remained in the camp as displaced persons, and because they did not want to return to the now communist states of Eastern Europe, they stayed in the federal settlement where their descendants live to this day. The streets were named after precious stones, and the houses were arranged in 36 two- to three-storey rows of buildings with around 660 apartments. The average living space is 43 square meters.
Viewed from above, the settlement forms a rectangle with generous, generally accessible green areas on which trees up to 70 years old stand. Around the turn of the millennium, an extension with around 140 apartments was added to the south and east, which resembles a mirrored L. It is not part of the almost 32-hectare area that is now being planned.
In the meantime renovated: the mostly small apartments in the Ludwigsfeld settlement.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
In 2007, the Federal Agency for Real Estate Tasks (Bima) sold the existing settlement to the real estate company Patrizia, which renovated and resold the old houses. As idyllic as the green island settlement with its old trees is – its infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired. There is no school and only two day-care centers. Aside from a drinks market at Onyxplatz, the nearest larger shops are in Feldmoching, Fasanerie-Nord and Karlsfeld, four to six kilometers away. There is one bus line each to the S-Bahn in Karlsfeld and to the U-Bahn and S-Bahn in Feldmoching. Residents are dependent on cars, and there is a great shortage of parking spaces.
It is now planned to carefully densify the original settlement, especially along Karlsfelder Strasse in the north, and to rebuild additional areas in the south and east, i.e. to the buildings from the 1990s and noughties that are not part of the almost 32 hectares large planning area are to connect another new housing estate, also in the form of a mirrored L. The areas are largely privately owned, the investors are private individuals from the environment of Patrizia Immobilien AG, the Büschl Group and PG Granatstraße 12 GmbH.
Plenty of space for new apartments: the Ludwigsfeld settlement is to be densified on the south-eastern edge.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
In addition to the 1,800 to 2,000 apartments, there will also be care flats, a neighborhood meeting place, seven daycare centers and a six-stream primary school with a sports field and gymnasium, also for the clubs. The future center of the settlement, including a supermarket, should be near the school and link new and old buildings. Initially, express buses are to improve the local transport service, and a tram is planned in the long term.
In addition, one wants to take up the long-cherished wish of the residents to set up a memorial for the former concentration camp subcamp, where at least 18,000 people were interned between 1943 and 1945. A commemorative plaque, which was attached to the last surviving barracks at Granatstraße 10 in 1997, points to them. Today the clubhouse of TSV Ludwigsfeld is housed in the now listed but decaying building.
There is criticism of the number of planned apartments
A fundamental debate about the building density of new residential areas ignited in the planning committee before the city councilors approved the structural concept and the decision to draw up a development plan with a large majority. Only Dirk Höpner (Munich List) and Brigitte Wolf (Linke) voted against. The number of new apartments was far too high for both of them. He sees “this pattern” again and again that those affected, i.e. residents and district representatives, reject such development plans, said Höpner. “The population does not agree with this density.” Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) criticized Höpner’s “purely local view” as “pure opportunism policy”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/. “A city-wide responsibility looks different,” he said.
“We will continue to need new apartments in this city in the future because it will continue to grow,” said Alexander Reissl (CSU). In addition, infrastructure offers such as buses or supermarkets need a certain number of customers or passengers. “A neighborhood like this only works if 5,000 people live there and not 1,500.” Christian Müller (SPD) added that the plan corrects “significant structural deficiencies” in the settlement. Anna Hanusch (Greens) pointed out that the apartments that would be lost if the density were reduced would then have to be built elsewhere. It is now a matter of “convincing today’s residents that they really get added value with the planning”.