What to do with the growth in the Oberland?

Created: 06/20/2022, 08:00

More and more people are looking for more and more living space in the Oberland.

But what to do with them?

© IMAGO / Hans Blossey

The Oberland is beautiful, well connected to Munich and economically strong.

Accordingly, more and more people want to live here.

One of the goals of the regional plan, which is currently being updated for the Oberland – i.e. also for the Weilheim-Schongau district – is to steer the settlement pressure in an orderly manner.

By Andreas Steppan

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen

– Cornelia Drexl, regional representative at the government of Upper Bavaria, reported on the current status of the regional plan at the most recent meeting of the planning committee in Bad Tölz.

It should be considered where "settlement surpluses" should go most sensibly.

According to Drexl, residential areas should ideally be built where there is a good connection to public transport, especially around train stations.

"In this way, car traffic can be avoided." Within individual communities, growth should concentrate on main towns where there is already a good infrastructure.

This prevents urban sprawl.

94 municipalities in four districts

Such an overarching development plan requires coordination.

The planning association had now asked 94 municipalities in the four districts for comments.

In addition to approval, points of criticism also came back, reported Drexl.

Some municipalities would have resisted interference in their planning sovereignty with the argument: "The municipalities know the local conditions best."

According to Drexl, the request also highlighted certain areas of conflict: city versus country, west versus east, Munich commuter belt versus remote regions.

"There was a fear that first- and second-class places could be created and that secondary places would suffer a loss of attractiveness."

The regional representative had proposed a total of 49 municipalities for "intensified settlement development", 13 of them as "regional development priorities" and 36 as "optional areas with a relief function".

Eleven municipalities from the latter group replied that they had "no interest in increased settlement development".

Only two municipalities reported that they would like to be included in this category.

Process as a "huge opportunity"

Josef Niedermaier, chairman of the planning association and district administrator of Bad Tölz-Wolfrathausen, described the process as a "huge opportunity".

In particular, it is important to bring together two major issues of our time.

"I experience in citizens' meetings that the same person first stands up and says: 'We need more affordable housing', and then demands: 'We have to save space'".

Niedermaier's conclusion: "We have a social need for discussion."

He was surprised at how quickly housing for over 1,000 Ukrainian refugees had been found in the district.

It is a fact "that we have a lot of living space, but it is empty or used incorrectly".

The Mayor of Eberfingen, Georg Leis, also explained: "We still have a lot of potential space in the town."

Citizens neither want to build nor give up land

Leonhard Wöhr, the mayor of Weyarn, reported on the difficulties encountered.

His community developed a cadastre of vacant land and wrote to landowners asking if they planned to build there or were willing to sell the land.

Result: “100 percent have neither the one nor the other in mind, but want to keep their properties available.

Many write: 'That's none of the church's business.'”

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The mayor of Kochl, Thomas Holz, reported on the subject of settlement focal points in places that are connected to public transport.

"Just because there's no bus in a place now doesn't mean it will still be the same in 30 years," he said.

New residential areas also for rural areas

On the other hand, Peter Erhard, the mayor of Böbing, saw a need for overriding control.

He pointed out that remote residential areas have also become more attractive as a result of more home offices.

Therefore, the pressure is increasing to designate new residential areas there as well.

"It relieves us that we don't have to declare every hamlet a settlement area."