Where Ramersdorf meets Haidhausen, there is a small green triangle, wedged between high-rise residential buildings and the Werksviertel, a tiny open-air oasis with benches, playgrounds, sports areas and a few walking paths. On the one hand, the trains to the Ostbahnhof rattle past, on the other hand, the cars roar along Rosenheimer Strasse. Today, the Kustermannpark offers the neighbors local recreation in the shade of old trees, but that wasn’t always the case. Originally, people came there to work, to work hard. At that time the park was a factory site where iron was cast and steel was welded.
The area once belonged to the Kustermann company, which started as a hardware store on Oberer Anger in 1798 and now has a shop on Rindermarkt the Munich institution for household goods of all kinds. In 1861, Max Kustermann diversified the family business and founded a steel construction department and an iron foundry. The plants were located on Rosenheimer Strasse, with a direct rail connection to Ostbahnhof. “In the area of several hectares there were also the houses for the Kustermann family, the stables for the draft horses and later the garages,” says the company’s website.
The iron foundry produced many Munich manhole covers, as well as cast-iron columns, stoves and stairs, but also cemetery crosses; after the Second World War, the steel construction worked on the steel construction of the main station, among other things. It was over in the mid-1970s, the factories were no longer worthwhile and were abandoned and the site sold. Up to eleven-storey office buildings and high-rise residential buildings were built there in the 1980s, and the small park was made up of the 27,000 square meter remainder.
It became clear that he has many friends when the real estate industry took an eye on the area in 2017. In view of the influx and housing shortage in the city, Bayerische Hausbau, which belongs to the Schörghuber Group, brought up a densification with 250 apartments for 565 people. The preliminary investigations became public because a local resident noticed small markings on the trees. A spokeswoman explained at the time that Hausbau had wanted to map the tree population and identify trees worthy of protection.
“Keep your hands off Kustermannpark” demanded residents when densification plans became known in 2017. With the help of the Lord Mayor, they were able to defend their small park.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
This could well have been the prelude to a felling campaign, because Hausbau was planning to densify it along Rosenheimer Strasse, where there are tall old trees that keep at least part of the traffic noise away from the residential complexes to the west. This part of the Kustermannpark – around 10,000 square meters, i.e. a good third – should have given way to the planned densification.
Neither residents nor local politicians liked that. “Keep your hands off the Kustermannpark,” demanded a Ramersdorfer at the town meeting in 2017. However, some owners from the adjoining residential complexes on the former factory site began to ponder, because Hausbau suggested a deal that would have clarified the complicated ownership structure – in favor of the community of owners, who would then finally have heard the remaining 17,000 square meters of park.
But in the course of the summer of 2017, Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) spoke a word of power. “This important free space for Ramersdorf, but also for Haidhausen, should remain in its entirety for the population as a place to relax,” he promised. Six months later, the planning department provided a substantive justification: the plans of Bayerische Hausbau were not compatible with the existing development plan, in which the park was designated as open space that could not be built on. And there is no question of changing that – because of the importance of the Kustermannpark for the supply of open spaces in a city that is becoming increasingly dense, for the recreational function with an extremely diverse range of offers for all age and user groups, for the cityscape and the city structure, for the Species and biotope protection as well as for the climate. The facility was also included in the Munich biotope mapping as biotope M-188 (“Park on Rosenheimer Strasse”).
At this point, the story could now have its happy ending: the future of the park, one might think, is secured, and newspaper readers, walkers, table football and playground children have a safe green haven in a heavily sealed corner of the city for all time . But far from it. There’s going to be a nibble again at Kustermannpark. Only this time there is no problem with housing construction, rather there may be a conflict with local public transport. And this time the green space could lose out – whether it’s a promise from the mayor or a biotope protection.
A new tram line along Rosenheimer Strasse is to replace the bus. A large strip of the park stands in the way of the route.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
It’s in the way of the tram. The green-red town hall coalition wants to expand the tram network, and one of the six new routes is to lead via the Deutsches Museum and/or Ostbahnhof on the route of Metrobus line 55, which stops directly at Kustermannpark, to Ramersdorf and Neuperlach. A feasibility study, which is scheduled to start this year, is examining the route in particular. But the three kilometers along Rosenheimer Straße from Gasteig to the center of Ramersdorf are considered set. “No preliminary investigation is planned for this route, as the route is clear,” says a meeting proposal from the mobility department at the end of 2021.
The problem is the space requirement: for the tram tracks, not only would the railway underpass have to be widened, which is clearly possible, but also Rosenheimer Strasse further out of town. And because there are office buildings on the left-hand side of the street, only the right-hand side of the street would remain, i.e. exactly the green strip with the old trees in Kustermannpark, which was supposed to be flattened in 2017. Nothing has been decided yet, the results of the preliminary investigation should be available in mid-2023. Only then will it become clear whether the park is really untouchable.