Excessive bureaucracy and paragraph-riddling at the Darmstadt-Dieburg district administration could soon result in more than 60 tenants of 36 Vonovia apartments in Pfungstadt being on the streets and homeless.
How they are to find a new place to live with the rapidly increasing rents and the lack of housing in the Rhine-Main area is an open question.
The final decision lies with the court.
However, Mayor Patrick Koch (SPD) makes it clear that he rejects illegal living in the "An der Neue Bergstraße" area and will not do anything to subsequently legalize the apartments.
The apartments were built in the early 1960s to house military personnel from a nearby barracks.
A few years ago, Vonovia acquired the houses on the new Bergstrasse. Military personnel no longer live there, just normal tenants, including descendants of the Bundeswehr employees at the time.
However, the building supervision of the district issued a ban on use as early as 2020, because the building permit from 1961 only referred to living space for military personnel in connection with the barracks at the time.
Therefore, the current tenants lived there illegally.
They should vacate the apartments under threat of a fine.
In the best bureaucratic German, a letter dated February 12, 2020 to the tenants, which is available to the FAZ, says: "In exercising our due discretion, we will claim you as a behavior disruptor, since this is the most effective way of eliminating the existing danger to public safety and order The behavior of the tenants, namely the fact of living in the apartments, is a disturbance for the district and a danger to public safety and order.
Housing association wants to sue
In the approval for the construction project from the 1960s, the houses, which were applied for at the time by the non-profit housing association of the Hessian trades, are expressly approved.
And without any conditions regarding the tenants.
The Darmstadt Tenants' Association sees the approach taken by the building inspector in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district as an attempt to intimidate people and praises Vonovia for its promise to assume all legal and legal costs in this case.
Many tenants could not afford that, says Kyra Seidenberg from the tenants' association.
The ban on use issued to the tenants, combined with the request to move out of the apartments, is illegal.
The housing association now has legal powers of attorney from all tenants and now wants to sue the administrative court.
A spokesman for the company pointed out that the documents available to Vonovia did not reveal any restrictions on living in the houses there.
Only a neighboring house, which is currently not inhabited, falls under the conditions specified by the district.
This house is currently vacant and owned by a municipal corporation.
The process could drag on until 2027
Vonovia started refurbishing the affected residential buildings last year and lodged an objection to the decision of the district building authority, which initially protects the tenants, because the objection has a suspensive effect on the eviction order.
In a press release, Vonovia now explains that the building permit from 1961 was granted without any conditions.
The company therefore offered all tenants free legal and judicial representation in this matter.
Since the district has rejected the objection to the ban on use, the only way to go is to take legal action, says Vonovia spokesman Olaf Frei.
Robert Wagner, Vonovia regional manager for the Rhein-Main Süd region, said he would not allow more than 60 people, including families with children and some very old people, some of whom lived here in the third generation, to lose their homes without reason.
Due to the overload of the courts, the process could drag on until 2027.
At least for that long, the tenants would have the security of not having to leave the apartments.
In this context, Vonovia refers to a court ruling by a higher administrative court in North Rhine-Westphalia in a similar case, which had declared the separation of housing for military personnel and civilian residents to be inadmissible.
The district said on request that the planning authority lies with the city of Pfungstadt.
They could create the conditions for a subsequent legalization of the apartments at any time via land use planning.
But the mayor doesn't think about that, as he said in an interview with the FAZ.
He cannot be responsible if people continue to live there.
Because the area is on the edge of the district.
In an emergency, the rescue services could not comply with the prescribed rescue times.
For Koch, the blame for the current difficulties lies expressly with Vonovia, which knew that the apartments there were illegal and rented them out anyway.
Vonovia also has enough apartments to offer its tenants alternatives.
Koch does not want to say specifically what will become of the site later on.
A company has settled directly opposite, which is said to want to expand in the medium term.
"We now have to wait for the outcome of the court proceedings," says Koch.
He knows that a verdict can only be expected in a few years.
As long as the tenants are still safe there.