Compulsion to green gardens: the city dictates to citizens how they must design their gardens

Created: 05/19/2022, 08:27

By: Stefanie Zipfer

So that hedgehogs and insects can also enjoy the Dachau Gardens, the city is now setting up design rules.

Gravel gardens (on the left in the picture) and artificial garden fences are no longer desirable in the future.

© dpa

In the future, the city of Dachau will tell its citizens how to fence their properties.

Gravel gardens are also prohibited.

While the smaller part of the building committee speaks of "regulatory frenzy" and warns of a "garden police", the majority sees it as "a service to the community".

Dachau

– For many people, their garden is synonymous with freedom.

They were able to relax and unwind in it, especially during the corona pandemic.

While some enjoyed the aesthetics of their gardens, others loved to potter, sow, harvest or cut.

8:7 majority in the building committee

But it won't be that easy in the future.

According to the will of an 8:7 majority in the building committee, the "rock gardeners" - i.e. the owners of a so-called gravel garden - should no longer exist in the future.

And opaque, in the end even stone property enclosures are also prohibited by the statutes according to the will of the majority of Dachau's local politicians.

All in all, according to the committee's vote, the city should become greener - and "fences of the Stammheim brand", as SPD Councilor Anke Drexler put it, should belong to the gray past.

Concrete not in the sense of the city climate

The idea of ​​banning the gravel gardens came from the faction Freie Wahler Dachau/Bürger für Dachau, the requirement for the “living hedge” came from the SPD.

The applicants agreed that a majority of garden owners value greenery anyway, but on the other hand, according to SPD Councilor Volker C. Koch, "there are simply people who make it easy for themselves".

However, their concrete gardens are "not in the spirit of the city climate", which is why it makes sense to "point the finger" at these incorrigible people by means of a statute.

Koch's parliamentary colleague Drexler explicitly "did not want to lead the eternal ban debate" in this context, but emphasized that a combined gravel garden-hedge regulation is simply "about clear rules that aim to shape the community well".

CSU speaks of "regulatory frenzy"

CSU spokeswoman Gertrud Schmidt-Podolsky was able to understand the desire for more green and emphasized that "the population had changed their minds towards more ecology anyway".

To enact one's own ordinance is just another expression of the city's "regulatory frenzy".

AfD man Markus Kellerer said that the individual "should still have certain freedoms".

Even alliance representative Kai Kühnel believed that "we are shooting at sparrows with cannons": The regulation only affects "people who never understand anyway".

In fact, the decision now means a lot of effort.

The city administration must propose an open space design statute that includes regulations on "gravel gardens" as well as "living hedges".

Among other things, it should regulate at which places in the city opaque fences will still be allowed (for example on larger thoroughfares?), how high fences and enclosures can be and what materials they should be made of.

Among other things, it must also be clarified whether certain plants should be suggested to garden owners as hedges and whether gabions should also be banned.

In addition, the very fundamental question is - do you want to actively shape the cityscape with these statutes or do you just want to achieve ecological goals?

– still open.

Probable resistance from those affected

On the other hand, one thing is clear: no matter how the articles of association are worded, the paragraphs must be checked and, above all, sanctioned.

"If violations are identified, action would have to be taken and citizens would have to be asked to dismantle their (newly) created enclosure and appropriate administrative offense procedures would have to be initiated," says the building authority.

It is therefore "to be expected that those affected will resist, and it can also be assumed that legal action will be taken against the measures ordered".

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The city councilors were also concerned with the issue of control.

As is well known, the city is currently under austerity measures, and there are no personnel for the “garden police” prophesied by AfD man Kellerer.

At this point, Mayor Florian Hartmann had to concede that the issue of control "in reality the neighbor does it anyway".

The city received "constant" complaints from citizens about the alleged or actual misdemeanors of their neighbors.

"If we don't check that immediately," says Hartmann, "then they'll immediately threaten with administrative complaints."

"block attendant mentality"

In the end, AfD man Kellerer therefore warned against a neighborly “block warden mentality”, which is promoted with this decision.

SPD Councilor Sören Schneider, however, firmly opposed this reference "to this dark part of our history".

According to Schneider, “our statutes have nothing to do with this”!

Important: The new statute will only affect newly built gardens.

According to Moritz Reinhold, Senior City Planning Officer, it is “not yet foreseeable” when the statutes will come into force.

By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Dachau newsletter.