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Dispute between city and property developer – mother (33) gets caught between the fronts: “It has become a pawn”

2022-08-16T13:52:40.284Z


Dispute between city and property developer – mother (33) gets caught between the fronts: “It has become a pawn” Created: 08/16/2022, 15:44 By: Stefan Aigner View of the controversial mountain in the Gleisdreieck. © Schmack GmbH A young mother lost her job at the environmental agency because she lives on the site of a contractor with whom the city of Regensburg is at loggerheads.    Regensbur


Dispute between city and property developer – mother (33) gets caught between the fronts: “It has become a pawn”

Created: 08/16/2022, 15:44

By: Stefan Aigner

View of the controversial mountain in the Gleisdreieck.

© Schmack GmbH

A young mother lost her job at the environmental agency because she lives on the site of a contractor with whom the city of Regensburg is at loggerheads.   

Regensburg – The nerves are on edge in the long-standing dispute between the property development company Schmack and the city of Regensburg.

And he also hits bystanders.

As has now become known, an employee of the Regensburg Environment Agency lost her job because she lives with her family in a trailer park on a site that the two brothers own.

Developer in dispute with the city of Regensburg: The relationship is broken

As reported several times, the city and Schmacks recently met in front of the administrative court.

Point of contention: An earth wall in the Gleisdreieck, in the east of Regensburg.

The Schmacks are planning a residential area there, where the 400,000-ton mountain of excavated material will serve as noise protection.

In the corresponding development plan, which the city council initiated in 2014, such a mountain is expressly provided for.

But nothing has progressed for eight years.

They argue about expert opinions, proper sampling of the mountain and various small things.

The relationship is broken.

Even within the coalition.

Property developer in dispute with the city of Regensburg: the coalition is at odds

Most recently, it was a clear defeat for the city before the administrative court in Regensburg.

The judges overturned a removal order issued by the Environment Agency under threat of a record fine of one million euros.

Legal officer Dr.

Walter Boeckh previously rejected.

A little later, around 250,000 euros against the votes of the largest coalition partner, the CSU, to appeal the decision.



One person who, as she sees it, got caught between the fronts of this dispute is Sandra Müller (name changed).

The qualified landscape architect and her husband have had a construction trailer on the Schäferwiese for five years.

They recently moved here, together with their two-year-old son.

Dispute between city and developer: young mother lives in an unpopular place

When the 33-year-old applied to the Environment Agency of the City of Regensburg for the advertised position as a nature conservation specialist in March 2021, the family was still registered in the Schwandorf district.

The young woman has excellent references.

She has been working in this area for around ten years - first for the government of Upper Bavaria, then for the government of the Upper Palatinate.

And the city of Regensburg also saw her as suitable to fill the vacant position.

An interview was successful.

After a successful application to the environmental agency: young mother should get controversial area

She knew at the time that car space was an unpopular topic with the environmental agency, although without having detailed knowledge of the legal situation, she says.

And you are quickly confronted with prejudice when someone hears that you live in a construction trailer.

That's why she decided not to bring the topic up on her own at first.

"I didn't want to address that until I had been given this area as a field of work - or if I was asked about it."

On June 10, she then began her service with the city of Regensburg.

She reported to the personnel office and gave her new home address at Bauwagenplatz – Am Ostbahnhof 11.

After an introduction with the responsible head of department and discussions about various areas of responsibility, he then came to the division of territories.

And here Sandra Müller should be assigned the east of the city.

There, where she lives on the Bauwagenplatz and where the dispute between the environmental agency and the Schmacks is smoldering in the Gleisdreieck.

Juge's mother declares herself biased: At first everything seems to be in order

Now Müller openly says that she lives on the trailer site and that she knows one of the brothers, Martin Schmack.

She was biased at this point and asked for another area.

Because even if she believes that she can process other applications from the Schmack company - away from the construction site - she sees the danger that she or the environmental agency may be vulnerable.

The colleague promises that a solution will be found.

In the coming week - at the official start of work - the new division of territory will be discussed.



On that day, Monday, June 14, everything seemed fine at first, remembers Müller, who begins to write a memorandum on that day.

The division of territory seems clear.

The 33-year-old should get the winemaker heights.

However, a conversation with the head of department Tina Voigt had to be held.

But that doesn't work until the next day.

By the way: Our brand new Regensburg newsletter regularly informs you about all the important stories from the world cultural heritage city and the Upper Palatinate.

Sign up here.

Regensburg: A conversation with the head of department becomes a kind of interrogation

Sandra Müller describes the conversation as a kind of interrogation.

It's about the construction site.

About a lot of details.

What water is drunk there, what sanitary facilities are there.

Apparently, the environmental agency does not know the actual circumstances.

In fact, there is a connection to the normal drinking water system.

For the residents there are showers, a laundry room and a toilet with a container that is emptied regularly.

The office manager took the view that you should only live at the Bauwagenplatz if you know Martin Schmack very well and have gone through a kind of application process.

In fact, it's up to the local residents to decide.


All in all, their honesty was questioned, reports Müller.

Asked why she hadn't disclosed her place of residence during the interview.

“I said that I was not aware that I should have disclosed my private place of residence, where I was not even registered at the time.

And when it mattered, I did.”

Afraid of a spy?

Environment Agency fires young mother without notice

Sandra Müller has to justify whether she doesn't know that the whole thing is illegal.

She takes the position that in a rental or lease agreement one is not responsible for whether the landlord is possibly renting out his house or premises illegally.

And as a non-Regensburg resident, she couldn't know the exact details either.

Your question as to whether the problem can be solved with an immediate move is not answered.

Somehow there was always the insinuation that her application had been planned well in advance.

That she should be smuggled into the Environment Agency by Schmack.

The conversation ends with no real result.

But the next day there is a knock on her office door.

The head of department and the head of department have come to tell her that she has been released from work with immediate effect.

More details will come in the mail.

But in the end, Sandra Müller has to pick up her extraordinary termination without notice “for behavioral reasons” from the city itself.

After dismissal without notice: lecture from the head of department

Supervised by department head Dr.

Regina Elsner then has to clear her office first.

According to Müller's memorandum, Elsner gave a lecture about honesty and the bad conditions on the construction site.


The water used is contaminated and the toilet situation is unhygienic.

The residents have the potential to infect an entire neighborhood with disease.

Sandra Müller only makes weak attempts to justify herself and leaves the office on the verge of tears.

"It would have been pointless to contradict all these views, which do not even remotely correspond to reality."

After termination without notice: Young mother from Regensburg ends up in Hartz IV

She "deliberately withheld relevant information" in relation to her official duties, according to the letter of termination that was handed over to her.

She has kept her place of residence secret.

"As it turned out later, they live in an illegal, ie legally inadmissible residential area outside." A permit for this development is "excluded".

She "trivialized" this circumstance, and concealing her home address was to be qualified as an "act of deception" under criminal law.

"The threatening external effect, according to which a clerk of the Lower Nature Conservation Authority (...) lives in an illegally created or operated living environment, would be fatal and must be prevented at all costs." For this reason, the employment relationship must be terminated as soon as possible, it is said finally in the by personnel officer Dr.

Patrick Veit, which initially means Hartz IV for the young mother, since the termination is extraordinary and without notice.

Despite the release from the duty of confidentiality: the city of Regensburg is silent

Only after Müller hired a lawyer and sued the labor court did the city give in and convert the extraordinary termination into an ordinary termination within the probationary period.

In order to give the city of Regensburg the opportunity to comment on the case, we had Sandra Müller sign a release from the duty of confidentiality and enclosed it with a longer, detailed catalog of questions.

But the municipal press office tells us that they generally do not comment publicly on “personnel matters (...).

Neither is the question answered as to why, if one actually assumes that there is a risk of an epidemic threatening the car space or one actually considers it to be illegal, one does nothing about it.

Young mother from Regensburg: "I've become a political pawn"

It is only pointed out that there are several "unapproved structures" on the Schäferwiese that are used for residential purposes.

There is no water supply or sanitation (which is factually wrong) and the city does not know how to dispose of feces.

In addition, the area is located on a former landfill, which also pollutes the groundwater.

An acute risk from landfill gases was not found in the last investigation almost 20 years ago.

According to Sandra Müller, she thought for a long time whether she should go public with the matter.

"But that was nagging at me the whole time.

I applied for a suitable job with the city of Regensburg without any ulterior motive and have now become a political pawn in a fight that has nothing to do with me.

Nevertheless, I now stand there as a loser.”

At first she was also afraid of how Martin Schmack would react if he found out about the matter.

"It's also a problem for him if the city suspects he wants to smuggle in an informer." But he was rather outraged by the city's behavior.

So Sandra Müller can at least stay on the trailer site.

After a young person sexually assaulted two girls in Regensburg's Westbad, the mother of one of the children saw a need for action.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-08-16

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