The most recent decision by the Neuried municipal council on the future of the property in the town center has been met with fierce criticism from the local senior citizens’ union. It was a “wrong decision” to keep the area in municipal hands and to market it as a leasehold instead of selling it as planned, according to a statement by the CSU seniors. A sale of the 1.57 hectare property, on which apartments and shops are to be built, could have made a “decisive contribution to the rehabilitation of the community finances”. In view of Neuried’s high per capita debt, which is well above the state average, the decision is incomprehensible.
For the Seniors’ Union, the primary goal is to reorganize the municipal budget in order to “be able to make important investments in services of general interest for all citizens”. The local board also doubts that an investor will be found for the concept. He calls the decision in favor of the long-term lease model a “conceptless approach” that follows the decision taken at the beginning of the year not to build a new town hall. The original idea of creating an attractive town center with a new town hall financed by the sale of the property was thus “buried” and a “historic opportunity” wasted.
Mayor Harald Zipfel (SPD) justified the decision on long-term lease with the aim of securing the valuable land for future generations in view of the scarce living space.