Another piece of garden city less: In Solln, the area is being densified
should – Maria Küppers stands in the middle of her garden – or what used to be one. “Right when the war in Ukraine started, we had our own bombing raid here,” she says, looking around. On Thursday last week, workers came to Halbreiterstrasse 6 and within one afternoon cut down all the trees and bushes on the property and left them lying. The dissolved outrage even beyond the neighborhood.
Branches and greenery are piled up everywhere
The Küppers and her husband knew that this would happen: a few years ago, the daughter of the former owner had sold the house to a property developer. It is scheduled to be demolished this year to make way for a new building. Küppers and her husband have rented here for more than 15 years. Now branches and greenery are stacked up like a high wall around their former dream house.
“That’s it!” said the Küppers when they discovered the villa-like house on their laps in a newspaper. The two would move from the Ruhr area to Munich, and the rent on the upper floor of the little house actually worked out immediately. “We were so lucky there,” says Küppers. Her husband gives in: Back then it was even easier to find an apartment to rent right away.
In the past there was still space in Solln – today one house borders the next
The housing market in Munich has changed since then. Living space is scarce. The Solln district where the two live looks different than it did back then.
In the immediate vicinity, the house is now surrounded by a gigantic, modern new building, which resembles a yacht with its curves and darkened windows. On the other side is a four-party house that almost reaches the boundaries of its property.
The house in which the two rent is small in comparison, but the garden was large. Tall spruces lined it, hedges and shrubs, lilacs, lavender, peonies. All this is now to give way to a much larger residential building for three parties. The old house dates from 1935.
“The house no longer corresponds to an acceptable energy standard,” says the developer. “Renovating it would be economically and ecologically unacceptable.” And: “The state capital of Munich is urgently striving to create more living space for its citizens.
New construction is in the public interest
The planned building project is therefore entirely in the public interest.” A garden with trees will also be laid out around the new house, which will now be 490 square meters instead of 182 square meters.
A neighbor is now standing in the garden of Maria Küppers, trying to save the last plants. With a shovel she digs up a summer lilac. “Take the primroses with you too, Helga!” Küppers says to her. When she disagrees, Küppers says lightly: “I’m not looking down there anymore.”
“A city is not a museum. A city changes”
In fact, the Küppers and her husband take the situation less tragically than their neighbors. “Of course it’s really a shame because it was a real grown structure,” says Küppers’ husband. But then, when asked how he will spend the summer until the house is demolished in the fall, he points upwards: “Thank God we have a wonderful terrace.” He is of the opinion: “A city is not a museum. A city changes.”
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