A new district has been planned in the north-west of Frankfurt for five years.
A lot of time and money was put into expert opinions, planning and participation processes.
And yet the city could end up empty-handed.
Because even if a majority in the city parliament decides in favor of the urban development measure, it is not certain that construction on the A5 will be allowed.
How Frankfurt grows is not decided by the politicians alone in the Römer.
Nothing works without the consent of the region.
There are good reasons to criticize the current structure of regional policy with its lack of transparency.
But you have to live with it.
It is therefore strategically correct that the city is now accommodating the region a bit and doing without the particularly controversial development to the west of the Autobahn near Steinbach.
However, it is questionable whether this step will be enough to win back the trust of the neighbors.
Too much porcelain has been smashed in recent years.
The city failed to involve the critics of the development in the surrounding area in good time and to sound out where common interests lie.
A mayor who is concerned with the development of the city could have done a great job here.
Political omission
Frankfurt does not have such a mayor.
And so it becomes difficult to use technical arguments to compensate for what has been politically neglected.
The specifications for the future regional plan, which almost completely rule out building on the motorway, are not an insurmountable hurdle, but they cannot be ignored in the discussion.
In addition, Frankfurt has a credibility problem: If you overturn the centrally located Günthersburghöfe building area with the argument of climate protection, it is difficult to justify why you want to build on the outskirts.
It is not unlikely that the new district will be even smaller than currently planned.
And since there are also problems with other plans, the housing shortage threatens to worsen in the coming years.