As of: February 2, 2024, 9:00 a.m
By: Birgit Lang
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In the beginning, the board met often (from left): Peter Arweck, Siegfried Eschbaumer, Christian Kronseder, Ulrike Werner, Anita Winter and Jürgen Kraft.
© Birgit Lang
The “Citizens for Hohenpolding” association dissolves shortly before its 20th anniversary.
Hohenpolding
– It wasn't enough until the 20th anniversary.
The “Citizens for Hohenpolding” association was founded in 2005 and has now been “liquidated,” as it is officially called.
“The air is out.
There was a lack of offspring.
“We perhaps should have applied more,” says chairwoman Anita Winter.
In the end, fewer and fewer people came to the meetings, so they decided to disband.
The reason for founding the association was a vacuum thermal building rubble recycling plant that was to be built in Hohenpolding in 2004.
People were afraid of harmful environmental effects and wanted to prevent the industrial site.
Farmers and entrepreneurs also joined the association under the leadership of Peter Arweck.
The critics even wanted to launch a citizens' initiative.
Josef Maier from Amelgering, chairman of the local farmers' association until 2022, Bernhard Kiesenbauer from Sulding and Winter from Hohenpolding were the three initiators.
The association invited people to an information event, distributed flyers and spontaneously collected 120 signatures after the citizens' meeting.
Ultimately, 464 citizens voted for the request.
“We tried to argue very objectively,” emphasizes Winter, who took over as chairman from Arweck.
The municipality then decided against the building permit, the investor withdrew and the citizens' association also accepted its request.
Today, Anita Winter likes to think back to those early days.
© Birgit Lang
From the beginning, the citizens' association was concerned with constructive discussions and the further development of Hohenpolding, emphasizes Winter.
And so a lot happened: two tree houses were built in the kindergarten by the club members, and a library was set up in what was then the Christianum 17 years ago.
The library is now part of the school and is run by it.
One of the largest campaigns was the citizens' picture book, which was suggested by club member Irmgard Arweck.
“It took a while for people to get excited about it and allow themselves to be photographed.” The result was stunning and was accompanied by an exhibition in the gymnasium in 2010.
A football field with two goals was also initiated, where the festival area is today.
“We paid the rent, organized goals, and the community took care of the maintenance.” The volleyball court was also an idea from the club.
A working group was involved in the “Our village should become more beautiful” competition.
And finally, a variety of meeting places were encouraged; Gyburg Huber wanted to create a herb and vegetable patch with senior citizens.
But ultimately nothing came of it.
“But we weren’t a fun club.
We also organized energy lectures, went out and offered citizens to photograph their houses with thermal imaging cameras to detect cold bridges,” the 54-year-old looks back fondly.