Dispute over development area: embarrassing defeat for the Bavarian community

Created: 09/17/2022, 06:21

By: Stefan Aigner

View of the Roither Berg from below.

In the foreground: The energy supply center for the new development area.

© Stefan Aigner

The Administrative Court has declared a development plan in Wenzenbach invalid.

The community had several opportunities to make improvements.   

Regensburg/Wenzenbach – Embarrassing defeat for the municipality of Wenzenbach and SPD mayor Sebastian Koch.

On September 1, the Bavarian Administrative Court declared the development and green space plan for the new development area on Roither Berg to be invalid in its entirety.

Courts gave several chances - but the community didn't get it

The neighboring community of the city of Regensburg had several opportunities to correct their mistakes - and didn't make it.

A legal smack.

Property developer Jochen Stierstorfer had applied to the Administrative Court with a norm control application and was completely right.

The lawsuit is the provisional end of quarrels that have accompanied the development area on Roither Berg since the beginning, since 2015.

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Dispute over compensation areas leads to court proceedings over the development plan in Wenzenbach

Around 120 single-family homes are planned on the slope, which was once considered a green flagship district - around 95 percent are now standing.

But things just aren't going well.

There are regular court cases (also with regard to the energy supply with house builders; but that will not be discussed here for the time being) and mutual accusations.

The relationship between the property developer and the municipality is permanently broken.

When the development plan and green space for the nine-hectare area were approved in 2015, Roither Berg GrundstЭcksentwicklungs GmbH, whose managing director Stierstorfer was at the time, was obliged to create almost 19,000 square meters of compensation space.

This compensation area was to be created on a field in the municipality – around 30,000 square meters – that belongs to Stiersdorfer.

Different trees should be planted there.

Constitutional Court saw unconstitutionality - and gave the opportunity to improve

But because the division of the plantings would have meant that Stierstorfer would not only have had to give up the almost 19,000 square meters in the end, but would also hardly have been able to use the rest of the area, i.e. the entire 30,000 square meters would have been de facto gone, he raised the bar his lawyer Robert Hankowetz initially filed a popular action before the Bavarian Constitutional Court.

In November 2020, the court agreed with him and judged the green space plan to be unconstitutional.

However, the municipality was given another chance - the rest of the development plan remained in force at the time.

One should touch up to heal the error in the green space plan.

But if you follow the decision of the VGH, you have blown this chance properly.

The Administrative Court urgently called for an agreement and warned

As recently as February, the administrative court had suspended the proceedings – and given the community another chance.

One should come to an agreement, the judges urged.

Otherwise there is a risk that the entire development plan will be overturned.

And that has now happened despite opportunities and indications.

According to the VGH, to put it bluntly, the municipality of Wenzenbach simply failed to communicate with Stierstorfer as the owner of the field concerned and to coordinate the necessary changes with him.

Wenzenbach: Administrative Court reprimands numerous deficiencies in the development plan

According to the VGH, the green space plan was changed unilaterally without really listening to Stierstorfer.

As the judges point out, he even raised objections to the changes in the municipality as part of the corresponding citizen participation.

However, there was no reaction from the municipality of Wenzenbach.

The municipality also seems to have had a problem between the distinction between the natural person Jochen Stierstorfer and his function as managing director of Roither Berg GrundstЭcksentwicklungs GmbH, as the judges point out.

Far more than just a lapse.

And it's not the only one.

The verdict reads like a collection of amateurish administrative actions.

The development plan in Wenzenbach suffers from considerable weighing errors

The community failed to contractually secure the new green space plan with the property developers.

Overall, the assessment and deficiencies in the assessment that the municipality undermined are “considerable”, the decision says literally.

Therefore, according to the VGH judges, one no longer had to examine further, possibly legally relevant defects, for example sloppiness in the file management.

The development plan is already invalid in its entirety in view of the considerable errors in weighing.

Campaigning mayor reacts contritely to decision

Mayor Koch, who is currently busy with the party's internal election campaign for the SPD state parliament candidate for Regensburg, reacts with contrition to the decision of the Administrative Court.

Of course they talked to Stierstorfer, he says.

But that was probably not documented enough to prove it in court.

"The situation is now very muddled," says Koch.

You just can't negotiate with Stierstorfer.

Development plan ineffective: plaintiff is willing to talk and criticizes previous communication

The builders at Roither Berg would not have to worry about their houses.

"These are not illegal constructions." However, what further consequences result from the decision still has to be checked.

In any case, it is now urgently necessary to readjust.

"Either we come to an agreement with Mr. Stierstorfer." Or the municipality makes one of its properties available as a compensation area - which should result in at least a five-digit amount.

Jochen Stierstorfer is ready to talk to our editorial team.

“I actually always was,” he says.

"I would have wished for it differently.

After all, I was born in Wenzenbach and would have liked to have done everything objectively and without such disputes.” In the past, however, he would have wished for more trustworthy and reliable communication from the community.

Profit before patient well-being - this is the accusation made by the renowned Regensburg physician Professor Joachim Grifka against the Asklepios Clinic in Bad Abbach.

But now he's being targeted.