The Turkish Islamic community in Memmingen wants to go to court against the city’s controversial rejection of the construction of a minaret. The community board decided on Thursday evening to file a lawsuit with the Augsburg Administrative Court, the association’s chairman, Muhammet Kul, told the German Press Agency on Friday. Bayerischer Rundfunk first reported on it.
The planned construction does not violate building regulations, emphasized Kul. The Turkish Islamic Community asked the city of Memmingen for a detailed reason for the rejection.
In principle, the building department of the city of Memmingen assessed the building application for the 24-meter-high minaret as eligible for approval. However, both the building committee and the city council plenum rejected the application. In both cases the vote ended in a stalemate; In the event of a tie, an application is considered rejected in accordance with the municipal regulations.
Among other things, the requested height of the minaret of 24 meters was seen as critical. Even if there is no development plan for the affected area, the development plans for adjacent areas provide for building heights of a maximum of 16 meters. The resolutions also caused a stir and debate within the city council.
Mayor Jan Rothenbacher (SPD) personally regretted the rejection and considered having it legally reviewed. Since the building authority had come to the conclusion that the project was generally approved under planning law, the government of Swabia could have been involved as a legal supervisory authority. After further discussions with the parliamentary groups and other parties involved, Rothenbacher announced on Wednesday that he wanted to implement the decision.
The negative administrative procedure was thus initiated and the Turkish Islamic Community, as the building owner, was informed accordingly. The Turkish Islamic Community had emphasized from the beginning that the minaret was a purely structural religious symbol. There is no loudspeaker system provided that could be used to call for prayer.