It is an important signal for nature conservationists in Bavaria: The Bavarian Administrative Court (VGH) cashed in on Wednesday the plans of the Upper Palatinate city of Teublitz for a controversial industrial area on the 93 motorway. “This is a good day for our Bavarian homeland,” said the chairman of the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV), Norbert Schäffer. “We now expect that the state government and the state parliament will no longer approve the sale of state forest for this industrial park.” The head of the Green parliamentary group in the state parliament, Ludwig Hartmann, spoke of an “important stage win in the direction of preserving valuable forests”. It is time for “Prime Minister Markus Söder to end his practice of sacrificing state forests for industrial areas”. The Bund Naturschutz appealed to the city to “finally put the plans on file”.
The Teublitz industrial park is a prime example of the unchecked erosion of land in Bavaria. According to the city’s plans, it is to be built directly at the junction of the same name on the A 93 on an area of 21 hectares. For this purpose, an ecologically high quality mixed forest is to fall, which also includes protected swamp and bog areas with rare species such as the common toad or the fine-striped ground beetle. The LBV, the Greens and the BN accuse Teublitz mayor Thomas Beer (CSU) and the city council of pushing the project forward, although there are numerous other commercial areas available in the region. That is why the Teublitzer plans are exemplary for the erosion of land in Bavaria. But not only environmental associations and the Greens made a front against the project of the 7500-inhabitant city. There was also a petition to the state parliament to stop the project. It failed, the CSU and Free Voters rejected the petition.
Every week, 36 hectares of arable and grazing land are lost
The erosion of land is one of the most pressing environmental problems in Bavaria. Every day, 10.8 hectares of meadows, forests, fields or other open landscape are converted into building land for settlements, businesses, roads or other traffic routes in the Free State. Every week two farms with 36 hectares of arable and pasture land are lost. In the year that adds up to the area of the Swabian 44,000-inhabitant city of Kaufbeuren. The CSU and Free Voters stipulated in their coalition agreement of 2018 to halve the consumption of land. So far, of course, there is no indication that they can redeem this agreement. Experts cite the reason for this that the government coalition relies exclusively on consultations, alliances, funding projects and other voluntary measures when it comes to saving space. But they would not have worked in the past.
After the VGH ruling, the environmental associations and the Greens now hope to take an important step forward in the dispute over land consumption. The decisive factor will be how the reasons for the judgment turn out. It is still pending and is not expected for a few weeks. However, the weight of the judgment is still open. If the VGH only canceled the planning because of a small, quickly correctable procedural error, the judge’s verdict would at most be a time delay for the new industrial park. It would be different if the VGH followed the arguments of the LBV, which rejected the project for very fundamental nature conservation considerations. In this case, the verdict could even represent a breakthrough in the fight against erosion, according to the LBV.
Mayor is confident
The mayor of Teublitzer Beer was confident despite the defeat. He pointed out that the city had “meticulously” carried out the planning and approval process for the industrial park. Nevertheless, with “such a complex procedure” it is not uncommon for the VGH to detect errors and therefore revoke the development plan. It is important for Beer that the court “did not show in the course of the hearing that it did not consider the whole project to be feasible”. Therefore, for the time being, stick to the project. When the reasons for the judgment have arrived, a decision will be made on how to proceed.