Snapdragons, magic snow or colored nettles: These summer flowers adorn the boxes on the balconies of Munich City Hall. Since 2019 – just like in the ornamental beds in the city squares – only insect-friendly plants have been potted instead of geraniums. Despite the high degree of sealing, Munich is not gray concrete everywhere, but sometimes even quite colorful.
In 2011, the Bavarian State Office for the Environment determined that around 46 percent of Munich’s urban area was sealed. This means that the ground there has disappeared under concrete, asphalt or cobblestones. These are the latest figures from the city. In view of increasing densification, the number is likely to have risen in recent years.
The Munich Department for Climate and Environmental Protection also sees it that way. “In general, there is an increasing tendency for soil sealing in Munich to be assumed, caused by construction activity,” says a spokeswoman. In September, data from the years 2015 and 2019 are to be presented to the city council.
Despite the English Garden, the Isar axis through the city and the forests on the outskirts, Munich is one of the most densely built-up cities. As the city is aware of the ecological effects of excessive soil sealing, it adopted a biodiversity strategy in 2018.
Its aim is to preserve and look after the city’s natural treasures. “The fact that the need for this was recognized and supported is definitely an important success that indicates a certain change of perspective,” says Astrid Sacher, head of the Lower Nature Conservation Authority, which represents the interests of flora and fauna as part of the local building commission in the city administration.
In addition, a tree protection ordinance that has recently been tightened again since 1976 has protected particularly large deciduous and coniferous trees from being cleared. In the case of new construction projects, property developers are obliged to plant substitutes and must include green and biotope areas in their concepts. The municipal forestry companies have set themselves the goal of planting half a million trees in the municipal forests in the coming years.
The payment
These efforts are often expressed in numbers. For example, the building department that maintains urban green spaces is growing every year. According to a list from 2019, the total area of public green spaces has grown by more than 160 hectares to 2411 hectares, the biotope and compensation areas by 280 hectares to 636 hectares and the flower meadows by 250 hectares to 700 hectares, it says from the presentation. Also listed are 59 new large green spaces and 27 other large playgrounds that have been created.
According to the building department, nine green areas and eleven playgrounds were created or renovated in 2019 and 2020 alone. It is a positive result, but one that can be questioned. Some of the new biotopes that are now part of the city’s area of responsibility were already within the city limits, but were formally privately owned or, in the case of the old barracks, federally owned. The blue-winged wasteland insect is probably of little interest whether it crouches in the gravel in the Munich East railway depot or whizzes over the stones in the new Baumkirchen track park.
Heather and moss
That doesn’t mean that the city doesn’t care about its green balance. Above all, the quality of the green spaces has been continuously improved over the past few years. On the one hand, new play or fitness equipment has been installed in the parks. On the other hand, there is now less mowing than in the past in order to create new habitats for insects and other living beings.
Formerly closed industrial and military brownfields always mean an opportunity for new greenery. The nature reserve Panzerwiese and Hartelholz in the north of Munich with its limestone grassland and oak-pine forest is an important relic of the former Munich heathland. The site has belonged to the city since 1994, and in 2002 it was registered as a flora-fauna-habitat area (FFH).
A pile of stones as a breeding ground for nesting birds on the Panzerwiese.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
A little further to the east, on the outermost edge of Bogenhausen, a remnant of the fen landscape that has existed for centuries is to be designated as the “Moosgrund” nature reserve. This makes it possible to make the 362 hectare area accessible for walkers, but also to allow plants and animals to grow and breed in restricted areas.
Play and relax
Playgrounds and parks are regularly renovated; in the past two years alone, the building department says it has completed 20 such projects. A few of them are completely new or have been significantly upgraded. One of the most unusual projects is certainly the Heckenstallerpark.
The new park above the Heckenstaller tunnel.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
In 2017, a publicly accessible green space was created on the ceiling of the tunnel that was built around Luise-Kiesselbach-Platz as part of the planning. The park in the Sendling-Westpark district is around 570 meters long and between 40 and 70 meters wide. In addition to a promenade, there are children’s playgrounds, basketball and table tennis tables and a climbing course. Now you can linger upstairs while the cars rush through below in the tunnel.
A good two years ago, the city completed a 45-hectare open space that connects Denninger Anger in the west and Zamilapark in the east. The public park is officially called “Denniger Anger Mitte”. In the city district it is known under the name Pühnpark. In addition to play and flower meadows, there is also a wagon castle and a nature kindergarten on the site. The facility is an elongated green that is intended to bring fresh air from the surrounding area into the city as a coherent band.
A meadow orchard in Trudering.
(Photo: private)
In 2017, a new residential complex was built on Horst-Salzmann-Weg in Trudering. Now the city has taken on the green space, which has hitherto been largely left to its own devices, not far from the community center and the district sports facility. The existing biotope structures are to be preserved, the green space has been developed with just a few paths – a trail was also deliberately preserved. In addition, there is a football field and a street football field on the eleven hectare area. Wild fruit and herbs grow along the way.
These three examples show that both on a large scale in far-reaching infrastructure projects, but also on a smaller scale, new greenery is being created in Munich’s city districts.
One dealt with the disappearance of green in the city Report in the June 29th edition.