Munich / Berlin - Among environmental experts, it is considered a paragraph on the urban sprawl in Bavaria: This week, the Bundestag will make a potentially groundbreaking decision in building land policy.
Among other things, the validity of Paragraph 13b in the Building Code is to be extended by a further three years.
This passage is downright hated by environmental associations and homeland protectionists, because it enables building in the outer area of settlements without environmental assessment.
According to an evaluation by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, municipalities have used this primarily for the approval of single-family houses and semi-detached houses.
In Bavaria, exactly 545 development plans according to 13b had been drawn up by 2019 - for 1345 single-family houses and only 53 multi-family houses.
The Würzburg lawyer Jürgen Bohl, who is the board member of the Society for the Assessment of Environmental Compatibility eV (UVP), speaks of a "construction policy flying blind". The 13b "fuels space consumption". With the support of large environmental associations such as BUND, he has filed a complaint against the 13b with the EU Commission for the EIA and demands that the EU initiate infringement proceedings if necessary - so that the paragraph finally disappears.
But it doesn't look like that, on the contrary: Today the building committee of the Bundestag is discussing changes in the building land mobilization law, the whole law could be passed on Friday.
This has many facets - the 13b is just one of many.
The former CSU member of the Bundestag Josef Göppel, who is also active against the rampant use of land, has even appealed to the Union faction leader in the Bundestag, Ralph Brinkhaus, to avert the 13b.
Probably in vain.
It is almost an irony of history that, according to legend, the 13b was an invention of all things by ex-CSU member Georg Nüsslein, who became a non-person due to the mask affair.
The CSU in the state parliament is angry about other things
It is a complicated situation, because also state politicians of the CSU are pushing for changes to the building land mobilization law - even if completely different from the environmental experts. The member of the state parliament Jürgen Baumgärtner is "really grumpy", as he tells our newspaper. "This law is big shit, you can write that." He wonders why the CSU supports such a thing, and only has one explanation: The law was negotiated in a "big package", together with issues of internal security. Baumgärtner is bothered by passages of the law which, in his opinion, mean an "interference with property". For example, a tightening of the ban on converting rental property into residential property in areas with a tight housing market. Or new access options for municipalities when buying "slightly" developed land.
So nobody seems to be really happy with the law. As is so often the case in politics, says Holger Magel, Honorary President of the Bavarian Academy of Rural Areas: One party wants this, the other this. The SPD is actually against it, but it does not want to forego other achievements in the Building Land Mobilization Act and will therefore probably agree to an extension of 13b until the end of 2023. Thereafter there is still another deadline within which the municipalities can process development plans, probably until 2025. “Everyone is guilty together,” complains Magel. DIRK WALTER
