As expected, the ball variant for a new fountain on Bahnhofstrasse did not spark any enthusiasm in the building committee.
The city planning department is now to submit a new proposal.
It is also possible that there will no longer be a fountain at all - but a raised bed.
There are quite a number of them on Bahnhofstrasse.
Penzberg - The proposal from the municipal building authority sounded simple. The heavy stone ball was to be transported from the disused fountain on Ahornstrasse to Bahnhofstrasse in the city center and installed there in a new basin, similar to the donkey fountain on the town square. Some technical renovation work would have been necessary. Overall, the solution should not exceed the budget set by the building committee in 2018 - around 65,000 euros.
The city architect Justus Klement promoted the water ball that is bound to be a success at the most recent committee meeting.
Children could play there, but no spray orgies on cars and guests of the nearby “blue kiosk” should be feared.
In response to the objection that the ball fountain on Ahornstrasse had already not worked, he explained that it would have worked, but had been switched off because the location was less frequented and the fountain had consumed a lot of water.
Kugel-Brunnen: Enthusiasm is limited in the committee
Nevertheless, the enthusiasm in the committee was kept within narrow limits.
That was already announced last October.
At that time the discussion in the committee had been postponed because the hour was late, but the facial expressions of the committee members spoke volumes.
In the most recent meeting, John-Christian Eilert (Greens) rated a “ball in concrete” as “not attractive”.
Children, he said, should be able to “splash and run through” a well with the water, even if cars get wet, which, according to Eilert, would only bother convertible drivers.
Basically, he saw it as a "sign of poverty" that many wells in Penzberg had been switched off.
Play of colors: the previous fountain was once considered an attraction
Armin Jabs (BfP) recalled that the former fountain on the site was intended as an attraction and that the city had received money from urban development funding for it.
The previous fountain was inaugurated on July 21, 2007 as part of the inner city renovation.
Hundreds of onlookers watched the play of colors and the differently bubbling fountains.
However, the technology was already defective after a few years.
In 2016 the city shut down the fountain.
You have to come up with something that makes the area attractive again, said Jabs.
In his opinion, that would not work with the ball.
Raised bed instead of fountain: City building authority should make new proposals
Ludwig Schmuck (CSU) made another suggestion. He pleaded not to build a fountain at all, but to plant the area. An idea that his SPD colleague Hardi Lenk (“We can't all get excited about the ball”) took up. He recommended that the city planning department submit another proposal for a new fountain and a proposal for a green island. In his group, too, the question was asked whether a well is needed there, said Martin Janner (PM). City architect Klement would obviously have no problem with that. In his opinion, a raised bed of perennials would be more attractive than a fountain, he said. In the end, the committee decided unanimously that the city planning department should submit two new proposals - one with plants and one with a well.
A third proposal was not followed up.
Armin Jabs had recommended that the municipal wells be handed over to the municipal utilities, because experts would be there with all the waterworkers and technicians.
City architect Klement disagreed with this.
The closed wells would not run because they were not maintained properly, but because some of them come from a time when they were built using "the mechanics of flushing toilets".
