Next Monday, chainsaws could howl for the first time to cut down trees and make room for the large construction site on the Munich Ring. The new construction of the Michael Ende elementary school is to begin. Despite this, the Greens in the town hall, just 200 meters away, are increasing the pressure to change the plans at the last moment. With support from the citizenry, they are fighting to preserve the wall on the street and at least part of the trees there. On Monday evening, Green City Councilor Jürgen Radtke went on the offensive in the building committee with an application and a catalog of questions. In essence, he questioned the necessity of the felling at all.
The debate about building the school went on for years. But the decision to completely remove the wall with the up to 40-year-old trees was only made last November and turned out very differently than the Greens had expected and hoped for. Since then they have been up in arms. They collect signatures, an online petition for the preservation of the green strip in the city center found 770 supporters by Tuesday. Some of them followed the meeting of the building committee, where Radtke initially did not talk about trees, but about safe routes to school. But the goal was clear – because one of the main arguments against the wall is the wider footpath and cycle path that would be possible without it.
The school will be rebuilt in the vicinity of the existing old building. But while the school has so far been oriented towards Raiffeisenstrasse, the main entrance to the new building is to be situated to the south towards the Munich ring road. The elementary school would have a similar public appearance to the street as the grammar school and the junior high school. However, Jürgen Radtke now called for clarification as to whether the majority of pupils would even be able to get to the new school building via the Munich Ring in the future. Because so far 80 percent would come from the north, certainly within walking distance via the Meschendörferweg. Should this continue to be the case, which Radtke also thinks makes sense because of the safe route, the planned expansion of the routes on the Munich Ring would be superfluous. “For the new plan, have we ever looked at how students get to school?” he asked.
This is what the school building would look like after a visualization of the Greens without a wall on the Munich Ring.
(Photo: Visualization: Tino Schlagintweit)
And so with Wall.
(Photo: Visualization: Tino Schlagintweit)
Mayor Christoph Böck (SPD) clearly disagreed. You’ve really thought about it. The Munich Ring will be heavily used by schoolchildren in this section, Böck predicted, also with a view to the route from the S-Bahn to the Realschule and the Gymnasium. The Montessori school will also soon be built on the Munich Ring. There are calculations for this. Radtke nevertheless called for a counter to be set up. A traffic concept for the Michael-Ende-School has not yet been resolved.
On Tuesday evening in the environment and transport committee, the Greens criticized what they saw as an incomplete species protection assessment on the area planned for the new Michael Ende School. The administration was able to largely refute this. Mayor Christoph Böck (SPD) then insisted that Tino Schlagintweit (Greens) confirmed that the administration was proceeding in a legally compliant manner, which the latter did.
The town hall sees no possibility for the use of the old sports hall during the construction phase, which the Greens also want, because the hall would have to be demolished early due to the processes. The town hall still wants to comment on the desirable preservation of the natural playground area.