The communities of Unterhaching and Neubiberg depend on drinking water from the Loisach Valley.
The legal dispute is coming to an end - the tap remains open.
Unterhaching / Neubiberg
- The drinking water dispute that has been smoldering for five years between the communities of Unterhaching and Neubiberg on the one hand and the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district office on the other is coming to an end.
The mayors in the Loisachtal, from where the Munich municipal utilities obtain the drinking water for Unterhaching and Neubiberg, give up their resistance to the water supplies.
The Garmisch-Partenkirchen District Office now has the final say.
“We don't have the slightest chance,” the mayor of Oberau, Peter Imminger, assesses the prospects for the process after various reports.
In Farchant, Vice-Mayor Hans Schmid sees it similarly: they “had a good fight” together with Oberau, but would “no longer look good” in the further course of the process.
District office in Garmisch-Partenkirchen is on the train
In plain language: Oberau and Farchant accept the demands for drinking water deliveries from Unterhaching and Neubiberg, where there is evidence that independent self-sufficiency is not possible.
The two Loisachtal communities have now officially transferred the decision in the water dispute to the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district office.
With the footnote not to make the water flow automatic, but also to have a self-sufficiency checked in the Munich district in future proceedings.
Ultimate deadline by the end of February
In Unterhaching, town hall spokesman Simon Hötzl is “happy that our effort is finally paying off”, but he does not see his community “on the home straight”: “What we are missing is the final signature of the Garmisch district administrator.” Unterhaching puts one Ultimate deadline: “In February” the topic must be shelved, otherwise the process will revive.
In the Neubiberger town hall, Chief Office Officer Thomas Schinabeck sees it the same way: “We are waiting for a clear signal from Garmisch and finally want the decision.
The deadline has passed six months ago - an unpleasant situation. "At the request of Münchner Merkur, a spokesman for the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district office said:" The decision can be expected soon. "
Loisachtal municipalities want financial equalization
Beyond the legal dispute, the Loisachtal municipalities wish to be better compensated financially for the drinking water production.
The argument: For Unterhaching and Neubiberg to generate high tax revenues with commercial areas, one must designate large water protection areas in Farchant and Oberau - financial compensation is morally fair, but there is currently no legal basis for this.
That is what the litigation is about
The municipalities of Unterhaching, Neubiberg and Neuried have been getting their drinking water from the Munich municipal utilities for decades, some of which come from the Loisach Valley around Farchant and Oberau in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district.
There they wanted to turn off the drinking water tap for the Munich surrounding communities indirectly (via the municipal utilities) from 2026.
Unterhaching and Neubiberg then sued because they were unable to obtain drinking water independently in their own municipality.
In November 2019, the Munich Administrative Court tried.
At the time, the court made it clear that the “permanent drinking water supply” of Unterhaching, Neubiberg (both municipalities had sued) and Neuried could not be cut off so easily.
On the basis of various existing reports, the court set the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district office a deadline of July 31, 2020 to position itself.
This deadline has long passed, in Garmisch they wanted to wait for an "expert opinion from a hydrological specialist office", which only arrived in December - and now apparently indicates that the legal dispute has to give way.
(mbe)
