Parking on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt is extremely expensive

• OfJens Joachim

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As soon as parking ticket machines are procured, ten euros per hour are due for parking around the Darmstadt artists’ colony. A maximum parking period already applies from Monday.

After the artists’ colony on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt was declared a World Heritage Site, the city began to regulate parking around the wedding tower, the artists’ colony museum and the artists’ houses. From Monday, August 1st, a maximum parking time of two hours applies in the Mathildenhöhe area. Residents can purchase special long-term parking permits for 120 euros per year as well as visitor cards for guests in order to free them from the maximum parking time for the visit. Appropriate permits can be applied for online at www.darmstadt.de/parken.

Against the votes of the SPD, FDP, AfD, Uwiga / WGD, a city councilor from the Free Voters and the Pirate Party, the city parliament decided a few weeks ago to drastically increase the price of parking on Mathildenhöhe.

As soon as the corresponding parking ticket machines have been procured and installed, the parking fees west of Pützerstraße will be one euro per half hour. To the east of Pützerstraße – around the World Heritage Zone of Mathildenhöhe – parking will then cost five euros per 30 minutes. However, the city has not yet announced when the parking meters will be set up. Parking fees are due around the clock from Monday to Sunday.

The parking zone comprises the streets within the area south of Alexanderstrasse and Dieburger Strasse, east of Schlossgraben Strasse (where the Darmstadtium Congress Center is also located), west of the railway tracks at Ostbahnhof and north of Landgraf-Georg-Strasse. According to the city, this area also corresponds to the buffer zone around the nomination area proposed in the World Heritage application.

It is also planned to individually sign the parking spaces on the northern side of Landgraf-Georg-Straße and the parking spaces on the southern side of Dieburger Straße and Alexanderstraße. According to the city, the planned locations of the parking ticket machines have already been agreed with the Unesco World Heritage Office and the monument protection authority.

As an alternative to the parking ticket machine, the city will offer the payment of parking fees with mobile phones. This payment method is already offered in the city center, in Bessungen-Nord and in the Kapellplatzviertel and is now being supplemented by the Mathildenhöhe district.

The magistrate justifies the high parking fees in the quarter around the artists’ colony with the fact that “the city needs to make greater efforts to protect and preserve the ensemble”. The traffic calming of the quarter is “a corresponding contribution” to this. Because the city expects a significant increase in tourism traffic with the entry in the World Heritage List, some special road sections in the area, which are paved with small mosaic stones, would have to be protected accordingly.

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