In the inner courtyard of Nimmerfallstrasse 60-64, a number of bicycles are still parked on the wall of the house. But if you look in the windows of the apartment block from the 1950s for clues to its residents, many of the panes of glass already have this strange, impenetrable darkness that tells you: Nobody lives here anymore. The curtains are gone, only on some of them apparently someone lowered the crooked blinds when moving out. However, there are still a noticeable number of satellite dishes hanging on the facade of the four-story houses between Nimmerfallstrasse and Mendelssohnstrasse.
So what has happened there since the demolition and new construction plans of the real estate company GBW became known about seven years ago? Something must have started moving, because homeowners in the neighborhood have now received very specific plans for a project from “Dawonia”, as the GBW Group has been called since 2019.
And it can already be found on the Internet: A residential complex with 76 one to four-room apartments on a total living space of 5950 square meters is to be built on Nimmerfallstrasse, as well as an underground car park with 78 parking spaces. According to the project schedule, construction will start in the first quarter of 2022, and completion is planned for 2024.
For Dawonia / GBW, the project was not a smooth walk-through. In 2017, for example, there were even political upheavals in the city council with regard to the old apartment block: In 2017, the company wanted to sell the complex and offered the city’s 75 existing apartments – for 25 million euros. Too expensive for the municipality, which only wanted to pay 18 million. The GBW went down again with the price, 22 million, but then to pay later this year. The group lured with the obligation that the existing tenants would move out within two years and that they would proceed in a socially responsible manner. The city should have paid another three million for this.
The deal did not materialize, but there was great indignation, right up to Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD), that such a “brazen” offer had even landed on a communal table. The Pasing apartment block remained the property of GBW, and the plans to demolish the apartments, which were in dire need of renovation, and to replace them with new ones also remained. The prospects are not good for the residents, who feared their rents, which are generally still cheap compared to Munich.
The political waves that the Nimmerfallstrasse project had made in 2018 meant that the district committee supported the matter and agreed to help the tenants’ community in the apartment block. There was a tenant meeting in the town hall, representatives of the Munich tenants ‘associations and Willy Schneider, member of the district committee and the Munich tenants’ council, now accompanied the residents in the upcoming negotiations with Dawonia, formerly GBW.
If you ask Willy Schneider, the outgoing tenants’ advisory board, about the situation on Nimmerfallstrasse today, the following picture emerges: “There are only a few tenants in the old buildings, many of them have been released with severance payments from the contract.” The longer, he knows from a reliable source, that individuals have gambled, the higher the severance payment. The offered rent of the replacement apartments, he was told, was twice as expensive as the old rent. He said that he was not given any severance payments; the ex-tenants were contractually obliged to do so. The tenants’ community in the never-to-be-case block of flats has since disbanded. The chairman at the time had assured Schneider that in retrospect one would be grateful for the support of the tenant community through politics and the tenant associations. The solidarity among the tenants made negotiations with Dawonia possible in the first place.
On the part of Dawonia one emphasizes a correct procedure over the years. “Dialogue with the tenants affected is particularly important to us. In order to be able to take the needs of our tenants into account, we have been holding individual discussions for a long time,” says spokeswoman Maren Holtermann. One goes into the economic and personal situation of the tenants and can usually bring about an improvement of the living situation.
They are helpful in looking for an apartment, offering alternatives from the Dawonia portfolio, for example new apartments near Nimmerfallstrasse, which are subsidized based on income. “In addition, if necessary and desired, we help tenants to settle their official questions. This is often helpful for tenants with a migration background,” says Holtermann. Demolition and new construction would create around 2700 square meters more living space and thus urgently needed living space.