The excavators are at work in Eggarten. They are tearing down the old houses that have stood in the natural area for around a hundred years. Heavy tracked vehicles, with which 14 of a total of 26 buildings are now leveled to the ground. All that is left of the house at Eggartenstrasse 9 is smashed concrete and bricks. The rest will look the same in a few days and weeks, investors confirm. They are already gutted.
CA Immo and the Büschl group of companies are planning a new district with up to 2,000 apartments in the sleepy Eggarten, which is overgrown with dense trees and bushes and lies across the railway track north of the Olympia shopping center. Half of them will be built by cooperatives. The green oasis will therefore give way to a densely built-up area complete with 36-meter-high residential towers. Only three of the hundred-year-old houses are to be preserved.
The development has been the major controversial issue in the north of Munich for years. The city council already voted in favor of the plans in 2019 and is sticking to the development, even with green participation. Numerous residents, allotment gardeners, a citizens’ initiative and local politicians want to save the “green idyll” at any price. Including the city councilors Tobias Ruff (ÖDP) and Dirk Höpner (Munich List). On Wednesday you presented an environmental report that the joint parliamentary group had commissioned the Gruber Ecology Office with. Because the fight to preserve or demolish the quarter is now being fought through animal and nature conservation reports.
Accordingly, there are more species of bats, rare amphibians and reptile species than the experts commissioned by the investors found, says Ruff. He calls for the demolition work to stop immediately and for more in-depth investigations of the local animal and plant species. They would be pending anyway when building rights are granted. His reproach to investors: “Now facts are being created.” The resting places of the animals would be destroyed so that they could no longer be identified in later investigations. This would result in fewer compensation areas. “What is happening here is ecologically a mess. But it will pay off in hard cash,” says Ruff.
Opponents of the new construction project criticize that the excavators are already creating facts.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
The investors deny the allegations. Before the work began, an expert examined the building and found no bats. In addition, one coordinates with the lower nature conservation authority and sticks to the demolition, says a company spokesman.
Conservationists doubt this finding: There are bats that are only finger-sized and cannot be found by experts in hibernation, says Heinz Sedlmeier from the State Association for Bird Protection in Munich. He suspects Nathusius bats in the crevices of the building. Also in the houses that will soon be demolished. However, these animals were not identified. For Ruff, it was still willful damage: “The killing of bats must be prevented.” He already filed a criminal complaint with the public prosecutor’s office in autumn. But that is apparently only being worked on slowly. In any case, the investors have not yet received anything.
The conservationists are also discussing a cease and desist order that would stop the demolition work immediately. However, she is legally on shaky ground and may have to pay damages, says Ruff. Together with local citizens’ initiatives and nature conservation organizations, he wants to continue fighting against the demolition of the houses and the large-scale construction project. But disillusionment is gradually spreading as to whether the bureaucratic dispute is not akin to a rearguard action. The city council is still behind the project.