It never hurts in life to have a plan in place. However, this principle gets into a certain imbalance if it is clear from the start that the plan is unlikely to be fulfilled. This fate could also threaten the investment program of the municipality of Zorneding, which the local Treasury puts together every year. This includes projects and measures that are to be implemented in the near future. However, in order for this plan to work, it needs the appropriate financial resources, which are not available indefinitely even in Zorneding, which is still debt-free, or as Mayor Piet Mayr (CSU) now said: “As a municipal council, we will have to look in a year or two where we’re going to get the money from.”
And the community will need plenty of the same in the near future, as can be seen from the action paper that the finance committee discussed at its most recent meeting on Tuesday evening. The six-page list includes projects with a total volume of almost 25.5 million euros. 8.5 million of these are planned for the current financial year, and in 2024 it will even be 9.7 million euros. However, the many unknowns contained in the investment program weigh almost even heavier than these stately sums. “This is a declaration of intent and a snapshot,” said Mayor Mayr. It remains to be seen what of the planned measures can actually be implemented.
The municipality of Zorneding would have to invest a six-figure sum to save the Pöringer Ziegelweiher. A lot of money that would then be missing elsewhere.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
It is completely open, for example, how the historic house of the clubs in the town center will continue. Because the approximately 160-year-old building, which previously housed the first town hall and the first school in the community, can hardly be renovated, the municipal council decided to demolish it last autumn. Although this is now also noted in the investment program at around 140,000 euros, it is questionable whether the excavators will actually move there anytime soon. “Does it really make sense to demolish the house years before you have something new?” Siad-Matthias Abdin-Bey (FDP) pointed out. He advocated planning an alternative in the near future – which should also cost a lot of money.
This also applies to the expansion of the town hall, for which the municipality will spend around 2.5 million euros this year. So that the work can start soon, the municipality has now leased a meadow to the east of the existing building, over which the construction site vehicles are then to drive. This ensures that the access to the fire brigade is not blocked during the work, as Mayor Mayr explained.
In the foreseeable future there will also be a construction site on the grounds of the elementary school, because this has to be expanded for the legal right to all-day care, which will come to Bavaria from 2026. There isn’t much time left until then, as people in Zorneding are now finding out. “That’s hardly affordable in three years,” said Mayor Mayr, with a view to the challenges that the municipalities are facing as a result. In many places, the schools would have to be expanded and converted, “but you can’t get the craftsmen here and there’s also a lack of manpower in the town halls.” Nevertheless, this year the municipality will commission a feasibility study for the school renovation, which will cost around 100,000 euros, and the project could then start next year.
The municipality would like to lease the TSV restaurant, but cannot find a landlord.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
When, meanwhile, something will start again in the club economy of TSV Zorneding is in the stars. The community actually wanted to transform the restaurant into a real meeting place with an innovative sports bar concept – but that turned out to be more difficult than expected. As Mayr said when asked by Giulia Hillebrand (Greens), the number of possible tenants is limited. Although the community is now even looking for a landlord across Germany, no solution is in sight so far. In the current difficult situation, the economic risk is simply too high for many, according to the mayor.
The risk is also high for the biodiversity in the Pöringer Ziegelweiher, the so-called Thaller Lacke. The biotope on Anzinger Straße is slowly but surely dying due to a lack of water. The community is planning 25,000 euros this year to save him, but it is doubtful that this will be enough. According to Mayr, talks are already being held with the Lower Nature Conservation Authority and an engineering firm, but rescuing the pond is proving to be “very problematic and difficult”. The mayor assumes that a sum in the six-figure range would have to be invested in order to save the brick pond. So a lot of money that would then be missing elsewhere.