It was a tough struggle for years whether and to what extent the container company ELA could expand its location in the Moosburg district of Pfrombach. The originally planned expansion area of 4.6 hectares was reduced to just under 2.5 hectares in a revised version. The city council approved a corresponding, project-related development plan at the beginning of the year. But the citizens’ initiative Pfrombach-Aich, for whom that was still too much, opposed a referendum with which they wanted to stop the existing expansion plans. On Sunday, however, the BI clearly failed because of the quorum.
According to the preliminary result – the final result will be announced this Monday at 5 p.m. – 67.4 percent of the Moosburgers who went to the polls voted “Yes”. However, 20 percent of the 13,873 eligible voters should have voted “Yes”. Ultimately, however, the total turnout was just 20.42 percent. In order for the decision to have been adopted, everyone who voted would have to have voted “Yes”. In the last Moosburg referendum on replacement parking spaces for the “plan”, the turnout was 30.24 percent. At that time, too, the clear majority voted “yes”, although the quorum was missed.
The specific question that had to be voted on on Sunday was: “Are you in favor of stopping all municipal planning that serves to designate the Containerbau ELA industrial park in Pfrombach?” 2,833 eligible voters cast their votes, eight were invalid. Of the remaining 2,825 votes, 1904 were “yes” and 921 were “no”. The tricky thing was that if you wanted to say “no” to the extension, you had to vote “yes” and vice versa. A bit confusing, but that was certainly not the deciding factor.
Felix Rust from BI found it “a shame that the quorum was missed”, but was pleased that “two thirds of the people who voted voted for us – compared to other referendums, we are in the picture so very well there “. It is not easy to achieve the quorum. In that case, the corona situation “may have prevented some from going to the vote,” said Rust. He was “disappointed that the city council failed to carry out a purely postal vote”. But with BI you can also see positive things. The result of the vote confirms “that the citizen expects that the city council does not always wave through everything that is presented to it by a company, the original plans looked very different from what is now being discussed”. ELA has adopted various suggestions from BI, such as greening and the planned orchard. Now one will watch closely “whether the promises are kept”.
As expected, the city leaders were satisfied with the outcome of the vote. He did not expect “that there will be so many no-votes, 921 is a lot,” said Mayor Josef Dollinger (FW). And he assumes “that thousands more who have not voted also want things to go on as planned. He feared that” it will be much tighter, but almost 1,000 votes were missing to reach the quorum ” I am pleased “that ELA can continue planning and is not lost to us”. The company is an important business taxpayer and employer. And one should not forget that the containers that ELA manufacture are urgently needed, “be it for kindergartens and schools or also in the swimming pool and for refugee accommodation “. In this respect he is” grateful to the citizens for their voting behavior “.