Ottobrunn: Trees have to give way to new apartments – district of Munich

For some it is an absolute outrage, a nightmare – for others a necessary evil and without alternative. Despite hundreds of objections, contradictions and suggestions, the so-called Vogelviertel in Ottobrunn will be densified with four blocks of flats; around 70 trees will fall victim to the construction project. “This is a huge intervention in nature. Absolute overexploitation,” says Erika Aulenbach, municipal councilor of the Ottobrunn Citizens’ Association (BVO), about the plans of the Munich investor Felix Eichbauer. Mayor Thomas Loderer (CSU) counters that the municipality can only create new, affordable living space with densification and at the same time maintain existing, inexpensive tenancies.

The municipality receives the right to occupy one third of the apartments

The Vogelviertel with its multi-storey residential buildings is a very special settlement, especially for the municipality of Ottobrunn, which has the second highest population density in Germany after the state capital Munich. In 1964, the municipality granted the Eichbauer company a heritable building right; This secured the municipality the right to occupy the 68 apartments as well as reduced rents for the residents. The heritable building right lasts until 2063, but according to the existing agreement, the municipality’s right to occupy the building ends at the beginning of 2027. However, according to the head of the town hall, Loderer, the investor is prepared to extend this by 99 years – if new construction and densification is allowed.

This has now been initiated by the planning committee of the municipal council. The plan is to build four new residential buildings with 40 apartments in the middle of the green residential complex. If the urban development contract comes into force as negotiated, the municipality will be able to occupy 30 percent of the newly created living space itself at favorable conditions for three decades. “It’s about the new building on the one hand and the existing 68 apartments on the other,” says Mayor Loderer. “If the current passage were to expire, the Eichbauer company could set the rent as high as it wanted from 2027. That was at stake.”

The citizens’ initiative Zaunkönigstraße fights against the densification and the felling of about 70 trees.

(Photo: Sebastian Gabriel)

A citizens’ initiative had been set up a long time ago to oppose the project, which the community has been working on for almost ten years. In addition to the felling of more than 70 trees and the loss of green spaces, the residents criticize above all the densification of an already densely built-up area and the noise and dirt that threatens from the construction site. In addition, Karin Luginger, a local resident and activist of the initiative, always cited an agreement that her father had concluded with the then mayor Ferdinand Leiß and according to which densification in the Vogelviertel was not allowed. This agreement, as Ottobrunn’s building authority manager Stefan Buck made it clear three years ago, is not valid because a municipality is not allowed to commit itself to urban development.

For BVO spokeswoman Aulenbach, in the community with its more than 22,000 inhabitants on just over five square kilometers, the densification must be over. “More than 85 percent of our community area is already sealed,” she complains; In addition, around the Astyx campus in the west of the community, living space for several hundred people has only recently been created. And this influx is difficult to cope with, says Aulenbach: “We need kindergarten places, space in schools. It’s all very difficult to manage.”

Mayor Thomas Loderer counters that it is imperative to create more affordable housing in order to maintain the public and social infrastructure. Socially disadvantaged people in particular would also benefit from the extension of the heritable building right and the associated right of occupancy by the municipality. In Loderer’s opinion, nature also has its rights: it is currently planned to replant almost 70 trees.

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