The struggle for two additional office buildings, each with an underground car park, on the site of the former Thalkirchner train station continues. Rejected equally decisively by the local building commission and by the Thalkirchen-Obersendling-Forstenried-Fürstenried-Solln district committee, the applicant is adamantly sticking to his plans. A court decision in which the stipulations of the development plan in question were declared null and void played into his hands. Despite this fact and the submission of revised drafts, the district committee has now again rejected the project – “for ecological reasons as well as for reasons of monument protection”. In addition, the 50 underground parking spaces requested would not be sufficient to meet the requirements of the municipal parking space statute.
The district committee made it clear that the improvements compared to the “chaotic and contradictory previous plans” were not sufficient for approval. Because just because of one of the buildings, twelve protected trees would have to be felled, which so far line the above-ground parking lots. Such a “clear cut in an ecologically valuable area” is unacceptable. Subsequent plantings would take many years before they could serve as a replacement, the district committee points out.
Local politicians remind that the area in question borders directly on a protected landscape area and a protected flora and fauna habitat. “It is part of the basics of nature conservation that areas in the immediate vicinity of protected areas must not be overloaded. That would be the case with tree felling and sealing of underground space,” says the district committee’s statement. The planned construction of the underground car park means that “serious consequences for the water balance” are to be feared. Flooding caused by heavy rain may even endanger individual monuments.
The development of the former station area would also be problematic, as would the proof of parking space during the construction phase. The northern structure would also change the overall setting of the listed buildings on the Isarwinkel site. The decisive factor here is the perspective of the publicly used cycle and footpath on the former Isar Valley Railway route. “Any development of the property around the building of the former train station would damage the monument protection to a sensitive degree,” says the paper of the district committee.
If the construction of the additional office building cannot be prevented for legal reasons, the district council demands at least an urban development contract that ensures that the property “is finally developed and no further development can take place”. Either way, the district committee rejects a construction site development from the Isartalbahnweg; this must be preserved as an important pedestrian and cycle path connection. For the rest, the committee sticks to its general assessment: “An additional development in the area of the former Thalkirchner train station would not be to the benefit of the city society and not in the sense of careful handling of areas that are extremely worthy of protection.”