January 10 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the closure of Ray Barracks in Friedberg.
On September 28, 2007, the American army ceremonially said goodbye to the base in Wetterau.
Most recently, a telecommunications unit worked there.
Since the departure of the radio operators and the return of this property, which measures almost 100 football pitches, to the Federal Republic, the site has been waiting for conversion.
The outlines of the future shape of this conversion area are now emerging.
On Thursday evening, the city council is to approve the urban planning specifications.
Thorsten Winter
Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for central Hesse and the Wetterau.
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The template for the city councilors from the Office for Urban Development lists a number of key data, including the planned residential areas as well as a district center with a café and space for church and other offers.
Not to forget parks and areas for nature conservation.
The new city district should be low-car and have footpaths and cycle paths.
Last but not least, the city is planning a careful use of energy.
For this purpose, the municipal utilities, the energy supplier OVAG and the Technical University of Central Hesse (THM) are planning the details.
65 hectares of gross building land
You don't have to start from scratch: As Mayor Dirk Antkowiak (CDU) said in the Urban Development Committee, a Friedberg group will go to Gießen in the spring and look at a project that is running there.
In the city on the Lahn, THM, which is also based in Friedberg, is testing with several partners such as Stadtwerke Giessen how a new city district can be designed to be energy-efficient.
This can be seen in the former US Army motor pool.
The Federal Ministry of Economics is supporting this four-year project with four million euros.
The counterpart built in the former Atterberry barracks in Frankfurt should serve as a model for the district center, as Antkowiak explained.
The former Ray Barracks cover 74 hectares.
65 hectares of this are considered gross building land.
However, not the entire area is built on.
A tenth is reserved for green areas and parks, we are talking about 64,760 square meters.
The Friedberg city planners plan almost as much area for nature and species protection.
According to this, almost 136,000 square meters are to be allocated to streets and parking lots as well as retention systems in which rain is collected.
The planned areas for so-called common needs such as the district center will take up half as much space as the areas for nature and species protection.
The center is said to include the Elvis Presley barracks;
the musician served there as a private, but he lived in Bad Nauheim.
All in all, a little more than 21 hectares are in the template for residential buildings,
Guideline "Affordable Housing"
The city's planners already have ideas for the basic layout of the residential buildings: They plan a fifth of the space for single-family, semi-detached and terraced houses - in total.
Buildings with up to three floors plus a staggered floor are to be built on four-fifths.
Experts speak of a penthouse when the floor area of the top floor of a house is smaller than that of the floor below.
With these indicators, they also set the general direction.
Accordingly, for two-thirds the guideline is “affordable housing”.
40 percent of the houses will contain rental housing and a fifth will be reserved for social housing.
The remaining 40 percent are classified as "apartments on the free market".
The office's proposal originally also provided for units for federal apartments under social housing, into which customs officials and nursing staff, for example, were to move.
However, this addition was deleted by the Committee for Urban Development.
Criticism came from the Left Party faction that the areas for social housing were too small, especially since areas for federal housing were included.
Slightly more space than for roads, car parks and retention basins is intended for commercial operations.
The city is currently planning 147,650 square meters for this purpose.
According to her interpretation, the trade also includes supermarkets and other retailers as well as service providers.
Elvis Presley Museum
One of the guiding principles for the new city district is dense development, which requires the economical use of land.
The city's planners are therefore aiming for a lively district with short distances, in which one type of use is not artificially differentiated from another.
So it is fitting that the city wants to offer its registry office (“Trauort”) services there, the Wetterau district will have a primary school built and the fire brigade will move into buildings on the spot.
However, the district will take over the buildings initially intended for them – as refugee homes.
This was announced by the city and district last week.
The fire brigade is accommodated in nearby houses, it is said.
In addition, the Wetterau district has reserved 20,000 square meters for an administration building,
this corresponds to the area planned for the fire brigade.
And another 8,000 square meters are reserved for the Federal Agency for Technical Relief.
If the city has its way, the new district will radiate beyond Friedberg.
An Elvis museum should help.