Living – Frankfurt am Main – Squatting in the Gallus district of Frankfurt – style
Frankfurt/Main (dpa/lhe) – Several activists have occupied a residential building in the Gallus district of Frankfurt since the weekend. A spokeswoman for the initiative said on Monday that the campaign would also protest against the gentrification of the district. The last tenants of the building, which according to information from the squatters will be demolished in the spring, will move out at the end of November. Some of them have now been accommodated in hotels, others in emergency shelters, it said. “It makes no sense to send people onto the streets in winter,” said one of the squatters. “It’s warm here, heating, water and electricity work.”
According to the spokeswoman, the squatters are now trying to contact the owner and the city for further action. “That wasn’t possible at the weekend, but we hope that there will be talks.” A poster hung on the fence of the property, on which the occupiers asked the owners to make the apartments available free of charge until construction actually began. As part of the new construction project, at least 60 percent of social housing should be created, it said.
The building is owned by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), as a spokeswoman for the newspaper confirmed. Therefore, the FAZ is currently in talks with all parties to clarify the situation, she said. These include the conversion property development company (KEG), which is the current tenant of the house, the Evangelische Verein für Wohnungshilfe Frankfurt, which is the KEG’s subtenant, the city of Frankfurt and the squatters. “The apartments at Günderrodestraße 5 have been made available to the needy in recent years via the KEG and the Evangelische Wohnungshilfe. They are now all housed elsewhere,” said the FAZ spokeswoman.
The city said it wanted to build an elementary school on the site. “In addition, the number of apartments is expected to increase many times over.” There are currently only 47 residential units on the entire FAZ im Gallus site. “According to the current planning status, 506 apartments will be built in the new residential quarter, including around 177 subsidized residential units.”
Rental prices in Frankfurt are among the highest in Germany. Thousands of people commute from the surrounding area to their jobs in the Main metropolis. For many years, the Gallusviertel, close to the inner city, was an industrial and working-class district, but increasingly high-priced condominiums are often being built as a result of conversions and new buildings.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:221205-99-788157/4