Mayor gerhard theuer tried to be objective when talking about "landfill site 1 (DK1)" at the castle meeting on tuesday evening. "The whole thing is only an announcement of the company schicker, and schicker is cooperative", he emphasized.
As soon as there are exact ideas and plans, there will be a public meeting with schicker. Nevertheless, he did not hide the suspicion that the company wanted to expand its originally presented construction intention on the company's own storage area by successive additional purchases of flat areas considerably in the direction of industrial areas and development. This has already been discussed negatively in the municipal council.
Apart from the fact that one does not know yet sufficiently exactly, which materials are to be stored, one does not want actually a dump, into which per year 10,000 to 15,000 tons whatever material are to be brought, at the local edge for the next 30 years.
In september, the municipal council had been presented with an intention to expand the landfill to about twice its original size. This was dealt with publicly at his request, emphasized councilor martin weib in the castle meeting, in order to make the population aware of this right from the start. In the meantime, schicker owns meadows up to the edge of the village, he noted "the DK areas cannot be coarse enough".
Municipality can block
However, the municipality owns the area between the original and the now purchased area. The municipality should not sell him in any case. It could thus block a landfill expansion and possibly achieve that the planned project as a whole could no longer be operated economically enough. Second mayor elisabeth schmidt-hofmann interjected that she wanted to guarantee that the town council would not sell the road under any circumstances.
In this context, weib recalled the quarry that the then operator, the company heib, wanted to extend. This had been successfully resisted at the time, so that the quarry was eventually sold off.
He doesn't understand why people were against the landfill at first, but now it is there after all, was a shout from the assembly. The landfill will probably prevent a further influx to rugendorf, because one does not know "what is buried there".
If it should come to a legal dispute, then the municipality would be defeated anyway "because we can't afford the money for expert opinions and counter-assessments". "Rugendorf will suffer in the long term", argued further shouts.
In general it is "a sourness and impudence that this was agreed to. The real estate prices will fall", and if the landfill goes as far as the outskirts of rugendorf, it will then continue in the direction of losau.
The interjections had been raised by councillor brigitte radtke. "The originally envisaged storage area is probably not economical enough", she suspected and also suspected that the district administration probably supported the landfill project. She said that the municipality does have an influence on landfill 1. The other plots of land had schicker probably already for two to three years in possession and parts "only slice by slice" that the landfill should not only be restricted to the existing storage area, as previously announced. Therefore, she asked why the municipality had not exercised its right of first refusal for the further additional purchases by schicker.
This is not possible without further ado, explained VG business office manager florian puff. The municipality can only exercise a right of first refusal if it has a utilization concept in the public interest for the object in question; however, it does not have a right of first refusal at all for agricultural and overlying areas.
Burgermeister theuer urged objectivity to the interjections and again pointed out that there were no decisions, let alone permits, for the landfill in general yet. In fact, there are concerns if a landfill site is too close to the village. At the same time, he emphasized that schicker wanted to cooperate.
Nevertheless, it came to councilman johannes heyl "suspiciously" that in september, schicker's managing director bernhard leutheuber "came to the presentation of the expansion plans in the municipal council with the mining office in tow" was. "When the plan for an animal fattening house is presented to the municipal council, then I, as a veterinarian, am not there either", he said. However, there was probably no structural requirement on the part of the freestate that a landfill be built in rugendorf in particular. For the project "there is only an economic interest" on the part of the company schicker umwelt. "But we do not want a landfill, and against this we must all stand together."
Mayor theuer also raised a further issue and announced that the bavarian state forests will probably not pay any compensation for the wear and tear of the municipal grave near kubelhof. The only thing that has been promised is the restoration of the field path along the timber storage area, which is being ruined by timber trucks. The damage caused by the 40-ton trucks on the already bad, 7.5 tonne barriered road was at the expense of the community.
Appeal of the mayor
The municipality has no influence on what property owners do with their land, said theuer. Nevertheless, he appealed to the landowners to think of the consequences when they lease (in the case of the wood storage area) or sell (in the case of the landfill) the land.
The burgers' meeting this year (the last one was held in november 2018) was only about half as well attended as the burgers' forums at normal times – without the village music stand concert and without catering.