No to massive housing development

Created: 05/23/2022, 09:11

By: Johannes Jais

The initiators of the referendum Manfred and Gabi Gayer (from left) as well as Anita Gropp and Werner Dacher are satisfied with the result.

© Johannes Jais

Denklingen - "The commitment of the past few months was not in vain".

That's what the initiators of the citizens' initiative against massive housing development in Denklingen said after all the votes in the citizens' decision had been counted after 7 p.m. on Sunday evening

A third of the 2256 eligible voters in the towns of Denklingen, Epfach and Dienhausen took part.

Expressed in numbers: There were 753 people;

this corresponds to 33.3 percent.

For comparison: In the two simultaneous referendums in May 2014 on the wind farm in Denklinger Rotwald and on the planned modern new town hall building on the Neuwirt site, 53.5 percent of those entitled to vote went to the polls.

Back then, the issues were more "emotional", according to the manager of the community, Johann Hartmann, who was also the election officer on Sunday, compared last night.

In this referendum of May 22, the quorum has been met.

More than 20 percent cast their vote.

And: more than a fifth – 621 valid yes votes to be exact – ticked yes and thus supported the cause that the initiators of the citizens' initiative have been campaigning for over the past seven months.

The referendum is thus accepted.

Werner Dacher, Anita Gropp, Manfred Gayer and his wife Gabi believe that two weeks ago we would have had an even higher turnout.

But they still want to "express their thanks" to everyone who voted on Sunday despite the beautiful weather.

Anita Gropp was also pleased with the election turnout and results from Epfach, considering that this town was not nearly as affected by the issue.

There, 110 adults took part in the 564 voters on Sunday.

85 people in Epfach voted for the referendum.

There were 25 negative votes.

However, it can be assumed that some Epfach residents also made use of the option of postal voting.

In the polling district for postal voting, which was counted in the evening by six helpers around polling station director Lisa-Maria Steer from the municipal administration in the citizens' hall of the town hall, 266 ballot papers were checked and evaluated.

In the three polling stations on site, employees of the municipal administration were also assigned to manage the respective polling station: Waltraud Gröger in Epfach, Birgit Jost in Denklingen and Katharina Kettner in Dienhausen.

The referendum specifically concerned the development plan procedure for the district between Bahnhofstrasse, Bischof-Müller-Strasse, Buchweg and Industriestrasse.

The two apartment buildings with 24 apartments that the investor Stefan Friebe wants to have built there on a vacant lot on Bahnhofstrasse to the west of the 60 apartments that have already been built will probably be unavoidable, especially since the building permit was recently granted (we reported).

But the initiators see the outcome of the referendum as a clear signal to the municipality to initiate the necessary steps in land use planning "so that something like this doesn't happen again".

From the political side, no representative from the town hall was present on Sunday evening.

Mayor Andreas Braunegger was on a short vacation until Monday, it was said in the evening in the town hall.