Being a garden city is all well and good. But the historic villa colony in Gräfelfing along the railway line should not be placed under special protection. The municipal councilors in the building committee were recently unable to ignite a lot of enthusiasm for designating the villa colony as an ensemble. However, a set of instruments is desirable in order to proceed more sensitively in land use planning in the future.
The municipality has had a municipal monument protection concept developed for years. It goes back to a recommendation from the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments. In a first part of the concept, which was already presented in 2020, the historical values of the villa colony were shown. It became clear that the layout of roads and paths as well as squares, especially in the residential area along the railway line, date back to the beginnings of the colony of country villas around 1900 and are still clearly visible. However, it also became obvious that there are already many structural outliers in the area, and there is talk of “remodeling”: ridge heights, density of buildings and facade designs differ significantly from the historical stock.
The local councils must now decide how to deal with it. Because historical inventory and transformations in the area are in balance, designation as an ensemble would be a way of preserving monument values, said Gerhard Ongyerth from the State Office for Monument Preservation. But it is not a must. City councilors showed little enthusiasm for the idea. Florian Ernstberger (Graefelfing-Lochham Citizens’ Association) said it was very important to the community to allow “an open taste” when it came to construction. The land use planning already takes into account the special Gräfelfingen structures. He sees no reason to make any more specifications. Marion Appelmann (CSU) feared that land would be devalued if “full development” was not possible. Because one thing is certain: if the residential area were designated as an ensemble, the approval processes would go through the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments. The result can be restrictions on building rights.
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Urban planner and geographer Martin Späth, who created the concept, praised the municipality’s development plans. There are few municipalities that bother to draw up development plans for their housing stock. Nevertheless, “deficiencies” had arisen in the past, he pointed out. Anette Kitzmann-Waterloo from the SPD put it more clearly: Renovations were not always done with finesse. The municipality’s construction consultant, Bertold Ziersch, said that the decision-making authority during construction should definitely be retained. Instead of protecting the ensemble, like some local councillors, he would like advice from the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in order to be able to keep a better eye on the “critical areas” in future land use planning and to be able to protect historical values. A catalog of the specific Gräfelfingen values as well as a “tool” for local political work are now to be presented to the municipal council in the first quarter of 2023.