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A woman reads from the Koran in a mosque (archive image)
Photo: Liesa Johannssen / photothek.net / imago images
The council of Heilbronn has rejected the construction of a new mosque in the city center - despite years of planning by the city and the Islamic religious community Ditib.
The development plan procedure will not be initiated after the negative vote.
The Muslims are now deeply disappointed.
"We will examine the legal process and claims for damages," said the board of the Turkish-Islamic umbrella organization Ditib in Heilbronn.
According to him, the seven-year planning of the mosque cost around one million euros.
There is already a mosque on the site.
The city parliament rejected the plans on Monday evening with 22 to 17 votes.
According to the Green Group, the project failed, among other things, because of the concern that traffic problems could arise due to the high number of visitors and a lack of parking spaces.
In addition, the size of the building is said to have played a role as well as the proximity of the client Ditib to the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Only the SPD and the Greens voted for the project.
However, the rejection by the CDU, Free Voters and FDP parliamentary groups was not surprising: they had already described the project as inhibiting integration in 2018 and refused to approve it.
Among other things, it was said at the time that the building project was developing "more and more into a shopping and service center as well as a Turkish cultural center with an attached mosque."
ptz / dpa