How chic living space grows in barns

Colorful pictures presented by city planner franz ullrich to the iphof building committee on monday evening under the rather dope title of "barn concept. They showed how new residential worlds could look in the hellmitzheim district if the "urban development guidelines" were right. The idea is to designate "building plots without building areas", namely on inner-city terrain that is no longer needed by agriculture. In this way, flat areas could be saved in the eaves area. The building committee was open to ullrich’s suggestions.

Hellmitzheim is the iphof district that is still most strongly influenced by agriculture. Some time ago, the city launched a demand program to encourage farmers to relocate barns and farms to the aube area. Conflicts with the residential population should thus be more or less ruled out. But it also poses a problem: what to do with the rough yards in the village, which are now empty and no longer used? The city planner’s concept was expected to give the responsible parties answers, and on monday they received them.

Decisive added value for building owners

Ullrich’s core idea is to offer everything with the plots in the village center that the developer would also find in the new development area, but to create a decisive added value: a barn or an outbuilding for hobby use, for example as a workshop or parking space for oldtimers. "What is a burden for the current owner could be a pleasure for the new owner," ullrich said.

Planners and the city have four to five rough courtyard sites in mind. New building rights could be created there in each case. The advantage: all of these plots – between 830 and just under 2,000 square meters in size after a "gentle reorganization" – are already connected to the road network and the public infrastructure and do not have to be developed externally as new building sites do.

Mend sees a "major danger" in the town center

Barns did not always have to be converted into living space. Deputy mayor ludwig weigand, who comes from hellmitzheim, said: "some barns can no longer be renovated. You have to be that honest."They could be partially demolished, according to ullrich. Mayor josef mend feels it is important to react to the development. Otherwise, there is a "great danger that gaps will appear in the center of the town".

Ullrich showed examples of how these gaps could be closed at best: with wood-clad residential buildings behind bright, newly designed courtyards, flat residential buildings with brick facades or light-flooded, coarse living spaces with haylofts. "We should now select one or two projects and start with them as good examples," suggested city councilor hans brummer. Since the city does not own most of the land, it can only support the plans sympathetically.