The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has declared the massive increase in resident parking fees in Freiburg to be ineffective. It was only a year and a half ago that the city reorganized the fees – and added them significantly. Freiburg residents had to pay up to 480 euros a year if they wanted to park their car on the side of the road. Previously, a ticket generally cost 30 euros per year.
With the new regulation, however, the city should have issued an ordinance instead of a statute, the court decided. The Federal Road Traffic Act only authorizes this. The judges also classified the staggering of fees according to the length of the vehicle as inadmissible. So far, drivers have had to pay 240 euros for cars that are shorter than 4.21 meters, and 480 euros for cars longer than 4.7 meters. The majority in between is 360 euros.
Judgment from Leipzig should be groundbreaking for many municipalities
The judges saw this as “considerable unequal treatment.” A difference of 50 centimeters ultimately leads to double the fee, according to a statement from the court. The court also declared reductions based on social criteria – such as for people with disabilities or recipients of social assistance – to be inadmissible. However, the federal judges had no concerns about the basic amount of the fees of 360 euros per year.
The Freiburg FDP city councilor Sascha Fiek had sued. However, the Administrative Court in Baden-Württemberg had rejected his urgent application last year. The Federal Administrative Court now had to decide on the revision of this judgment.
The decision from Leipzig should be groundbreaking for many municipalities, as they are planning to introduce similar rules. The city of Cologne, for example, also wants to raise the fees for resident parking in the coming year – staggered according to the length of the vehicles. The prices should range between 330 and 390 euros.
“This is a huge setback,” says Stefan Weigele, co-founder of Civity, which advises cities and companies on transport issues. In his opinion, higher resident parking fees can contribute to the mobility turnaround. And in two ways: on the one hand, higher fees are a push factor that urges drivers to switch to other means of transport. On the other hand, cities like Vienna have shown that parking space management can generate significant income, “which in turn can be used to expand the bicycle infrastructure or public transport.” Space is also a precious commodity in inner cities. Graduating the prices according to the length of the vehicles, as in Freiburg, “should therefore be pushed much harder”. The judgment from Leipzig should make that much more difficult.
Helmut Dedy, General Manager of the German Association of Cities, still sees good news in the verdict: “The court expressly did not question the amount of the fee, that’s a good thing,” said Dedy. “Ultimately, the statute was only repealed because the federal and state governments made it too easy for themselves when changing the road law and issuing the ordinance on resident parking.” He is now demanding a reform of the road traffic law from the Federal Ministry of Transport, which would give the cities the opportunity to make local decisions themselves.
Baden-Württemberg was a pioneer in the reorganization of resident parking
It was only three years ago that the Bundestag and Bundesrat agreed to transfer sovereignty over resident parking fees to the federal states. Previously, there was a nationwide upper limit of EUR 30.70 per year. Since then, the federal states have been able to issue their own fee schedule for resident parking – or transfer the task to the municipalities. Baden-Württemberg was the first federal state to make use of this in 2021, whereupon cities such as Freiburg and Tübingen increased prices.
Some states followed suit, others are still slowing down. Bavaria, for example, is sticking to the upper limit of 30.70 euros per year and is not releasing the decision to the municipalities. Against the background of the high burden for citizens due to the general price increases, the decision was made to “postpone the further development of the necessary regulatory procedure in Bavaria for the time being,” according to the responsible Ministry of the Interior.