Toilet debate in Regensburg: "Toilettl" instead of luxury toilet?

Created: 09/21/2022, 20:41

By: Stefan Aigner

Expensive to buy and often out of order: new high-tech toilet at the bus station in Regensburg.

© Stefan Aigner

Public toilets are a hot topic in Regensburg.

Now the friends of the old town have also gotten involved in this debate.  

Regensburg – Experts in the Regensburg city administration had put a lot of time and effort into a master plan that would remedy the lack of public toilets in the cathedral city and that was to be approved by the city council in March.

Debate about public toilets in Regensburg: "Master plan toilet" on hold

But after several rounds in the coalition committee, additions, corrections, rearrangements and changes, a draft resolution ended up in the city council that was contradictory on the one hand.

The coalition swung around and Mayor Gertrud Maltz-Schwarzfischer snubbed her administration by deleting key points from the template and putting the “Master Plan Toilet” on hold again.

Public toilets in Regensburg: Extremely expensive - also in maintenance

What is particularly striking about the debate about toilets is their price.

A toilet was only recently opened on Schwanenplatz in Regensburg, which – together with a shelter, a bit of green space and state-of-the-art technology – after nine years of planning and construction ended up costing 900,000 euros to the municipal office.

Another toilet that was planned near Jahninsel but ultimately scrapped was valued at around €400,000, plus annual maintenance in the high five to low six figure range.

And that's how much the toilets planned for the future should cost.

So far anyway.

And that seems to be due in particular to the fact that administration prefers a market leader in this business whose prices do not seem understandable to those who are not.

Public toilets: Friends of the old town present a different concept

Christina Grasser is one who has worked very intensively on public toilets.

The engineer studied architecture and dealt intensively with the subject of public toilets as part of a thesis at the University of Bologna.

At that time it was about “Comfort Stations / Public Sanitary Facilities” for New York City.

At the invitation of Professor Peter Morsbach, she has now presented this concept, reworked for Regensburg, to the Friends of the Old Town in the Empty Bag.

The name: "toilet".

And what makes Graßer's idea appealing, at least at first glance, is not only the transparent design of the toilet huts, which could be individually adapted to the respective environment, but also the transparency in their statements about possible costs.

Expert on toilet prices: "I can't explain that."

According to Graßer, a module – these are standard sizes – in the middle price category (before possible corona-related price increases) costs around 20,000 euros – including the permanently installed sanitary interior fittings, toilet/urinal/sink.

Of course, there would also be the façade, connections, a necessary foundation – depending on the subsoil – and – depending on the requirement – ​​high tech.

And here, too, she doesn't dare to make an overly valid cost estimate, says Grasser.

But why the public toilet on Schwanenplatz costs 900,000 euros and other toilets based on the Jahninsel model cost 400,000 euros, neither she nor various architects with whom she spoke about this topic could explain.

(By the way: Our brand new Regensburg newsletter will keep you regularly informed about all the important stories from the World Heritage city and the Upper Palatinate. Register here.)

“Toilettl” model: We also thought about showers

The division of the modules presented by her - barrier-free entrance area, space for technology and finally those for the sanitary facilities - differs in no way from those of other - more expensive - providers.

These modules could be arranged next to each other, adapted to the environment in various ways, or aligned one above the other.

A vacuum toilet and the use of rain or gray water would result in significant resource savings.

And Graßer even thought about an inexpensive shower option, for example for the homeless, which could be integrated.

It is the "Shower Loop System", available free of charge as open source, which uses various cleaning stages with just ten liters of water and costs just 900 euros per unit.

Cleaning: Own staff instead of full-service operator model

Aside from the price, the focus on a cost-effective and yet practicable solution, there are two main points in which Graßer's concept differs significantly from the previous ideas of the planning department of the city of Regensburg.

On the one hand, Graßer pleads for personal care of the toilets - cleaning and service staff who take care of their condition several times a day.

Instead, the administration advocates fully automatic cleaning, as provided for in the original “toilet master plan” (which hardly works at the bus station and leads to regular closures of the high-tech toilet there).

The full-service operator model, which according to the municipal “toilet master plan” is to be outsourced, would run for 15 years and would cost a minimum of 4000 euros per month – per toilet house – would be with the “Toilettl” Concept probably off the table.

Friends of the old town: It needs a solution between dixie and luxury toilet

In the end, the friends of the old town are quite impressed and the chairman of the old town SPD, Alexander Irmisch, whom Morsbach invited, is also interested.

Morsbach emphasizes that the aim is to stimulate the debate so that the “blatant lack of public conveniences” can finally be addressed in a meaningful way.

Because there is also something between a dixie toilet and a luxury toilet on Schwanenplatz for 900,000 euros.

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