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Offenbach and the limits of growth

Offenbach has grown by around 20,000 inhabitants – the size of a small town – in recent years. The municipality with the smallest municipal area of ​​all major Hessian cities now has almost 140,000 inhabitants. Isn’t that the limit of growth? Politicians rarely answer the question with unanimity.

Offenbach – The impression is not misleading: Wherever it is legally possible, apartments have been and are being built in Offenbach. This applies to the showcase project Hafenviertel as well as to former backyards, in which densification is now the order of the day.

In the past five years, city spokesman Fabian El-Cheikh points out, numerous vacant lots have been closed and former commercial areas in the expanded inner city area have been developed for residential development. As examples, he cites the building project “Am Spitzen Eck” in the Großer Biergrund, the Luisenhof, the Kappushöfe, the Senefelder or Goethe quarters.

Quite a few Offenbachers fear that the limits of growth have long been reached. Especially since on the one hand the quality of life suffers and on the other hand growth requires an infrastructure that poor Offenbach actually cannot cope with. The current focal point of these fears is the conflict over the planned development of Bieber Waldhof-West.

We have representatives of the Offenbach people, specifically: parliamentary groups represented in the city parliament, asked for their point of view. As a result, none of them share these fears.

According to a joint statement by the government coalition of the CDU, the Greens FDP and Free Voters, most of the increased population has been able to find apartments through internal densification and restructuring of former commercial areas. This trend towards internal densification continues and this is often easily possible according to the building code. “The potential for additional area growth is defined and limited by the areas named in the master plan,” the coalition leaders refer to the direction of the policy that was decided by broad consensus at the time.

The SPD parliamentary group also refers to the master plan: it provides the framework, according to parliamentary group leader Martin Wilhelm. The touchstone for the use of space must be that the balance can be maintained between economic growth and urgently needed affordable housing on the one hand and environmentally friendly planning and creation of infrastructure such as schools or daycare centers on the other.

As far as the population forecasts are concerned, Wilhelm points out uncertainties, as many landowners already have building permits and would use it in different ways. “But we are assuming 160,000 inhabitants at the end of the 1920s,” said the SPD parliamentary group leader.

When it comes to the question of how the necessary infrastructure is to be financed, the Tanzania coalition believes that other actors must also be brought on board: the decision was made to involve investors or property owners in the costs of housing projects if possible. This is already happening for the creation of new daycare places, but in the future, for example, costs for building a school should also be included. “It is important that the state and the federal government subsidize not only the renovation, but also the expansion of infrastructure,” said the coalition.

It is assessed differently whether higher-income newcomers will flush the necessary money into Offenbach’s economy and the city coffers in the next few years. While the coalition has at least made the observation that the composition of the population has changed as a result of the new development areas and that they are getting closer to the goal of the master plan of achieving a better balance, the SPD emphasizes that this calculation was never made by them. Martin Wilhelm: “Offenbach’s finances are helped immediately if the federal and state governments meet their responsibility for the social legislation they have passed.” In the long term, however, Lord Mayor Felix Schwenke’s course of establishing strong and sustainable companies and creating jobs in Offenbach will pay off.

With a view to the planned development of Bieber Waldhof-West, both the coalition and the social democrats see the city of Offenbach as responsible when it comes to taking into account the settlement pressure in the region. “All the municipalities in the Rhine-Main area are growing. Anyone who has grown has to adjust to it and steer it through clever planning, ”say the coalition partners. This development cannot simply be sat out or rejected by resolutions. The fact that a city in the growing region would close the bulkheads and remain as an island, as it were, is not a realistic scenario.

Offenbach benefits from the region and therefore has a responsibility on the housing market, for an appropriate infrastructure for its residents and for the settlement of jobs, says SPD parliamentary group leader Wilhelm. At the same time, however, he considers it a mistake to only want to satisfy the housing pressure within the “Frankfurter Bogen Ring” proposed by the Green Hessian Minister of Economics Tarek Al-Wazir. “The basis must not be a radius of 30 minutes’ travel time in today’s S-Bahn network, but we need investments in the railways that make it possible to commute from Aschaffenburg, Limburg or Schlüchtern to the heart of the region in 30 minutes”, says Wilhelm .

In the opinion of the parliamentary groups in the city parliament, there is no need to explicitly state when the limits of growth for Offenbach will be reached. The master plan defines these limits, they say.

By Matthias Dahmer

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