Fraunberg's mayor and mayor's spokesman, Hans Wiesmaier, has sharply criticized Bavaria's new state development program.
It means almost the end for communities like his.
Fraunberg - "Where are we being put in a corner again?" Mayor Hans Wiesmaier was visibly angry at the meeting of the Fraunberg municipal council about the new draft of the so-called Bavarian state development program (LEP).
The municipality should submit a statement on what the State Ministry for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy in Munich sent as a draft to all municipalities in Bavaria in December 2021.
In his criticism, Wiesmaier follows the explanations of the Bavarian Municipal Council, of which he is the district chairman.
He writes that the new definitions "do not lead to a strengthening of rural areas or to a relief of the conurbations".
In fact, the opposite is the case: in the chapters on equivalence and sustainability, settlement structure and internal structure before external development, "an idea of freezing and conserving rural areas and encouraging the development of the centers is postulated".
The head of the town hall, who refers to the paper from the community day, sees a great danger for his community in the new ideas for future state development.
"That would result in a development stop, especially for rural communities and their districts, and would cause further stress and overheating of already strained densely populated areas," predicted Wiesmaier.
The mayor is particularly bothered by the duty of assessment and spatial coordination in any planning process.
"That," according to Wiesmaier, "is a de facto disempowerment of the communities."
Another point in the LEP paper bothers him: “It is written there that development should only take place where all conceivable infrastructures are available.
This means a virtual end for communities like ours, which have neither a grocery store, a doctor nor a pharmacy in town.”
He also does not understand and accept that attempts are being made to massively intervene in the municipalities' planning sovereignty.
“We on the ground are still the ones who know our way around best.
That’s why we should also make all construction decisions, for example.”
Wiesmaier sees the fact that “the reserved area of a third runway at Munich Airport has still not been changed” as a particularly negative individual example from the region.
We still have no evidence of the need for an area of at least 350 hectares”.
The mayor ultimately had the council vote on this particular point.
The result: by a large majority, Fraunberg's community representatives no longer want to see the third runway in the state development program at all.
