Swimming pond painted

Luxury construction without bathing fun, but with procedural errors

Formal errors can happen: For the project opponents, a slip-up in correspondence gives them another four weeks to optimize their arguments.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/stock.adobe.com, openstreetmap.contributors)

Posse surrounding the construction of a luxury residential complex in a small rural village in the Weinviertel region: after a confusion of plans, massive protests from local residents and a review of the townscape, the official mold has now also made a misstep. As a result, the project has come to a standstill - the objection period has been extended and the bathing pond has been removed.

The rural village of Höbersbrunn in the district of Mistelbach with 389 inhabitants is not designed for a luxury building complex with 16 residential units and a swimming pond due to its infrastructure alone (after a barn fire, the entire water supply failed until the following day, please note), according to 13 residents who have filed legal objections(we reported). Other residents also have concerns - for example about the volume of traffic.

After many months, the municipality has now issued a decision that all objections are "inadmissible". However, this had one flaw - namely that it was itself "inadmissible". The reason: the signature was not original, but a copy, making the entire document legally invalid.

Posse about rejection, which citizens could reject
So back to the start: The parent municipality of Gaweinstal first of all had to declare the invalid decision as inadmissible in a further letter, this time signed in a legally correct manner, and again announce the possibility of objections, including granting a prescribed four-week period. Whether the old concerns regarding the disputed number of storeys or the narrow access lanes will be successful in the second round is doubtful, however, and new arguments are being put forward.

New mayor is in contact with planners
"We have now made concessions to the residents in that each residential unit must now have two parking spaces instead of one. The swimming pond is also not coming, a playground is being built in its place," explains Mayor Johannes Berthold, who has only been in office since October 2023. He is not in a position to judge whether the project planned under his predecessor makes sense. "But legally, as mayor, you have virtually no say in the 'building land-agriculture' zoning there - and neither do I." 

In any case, he is in contact with the investors and planners - a lot has changed since the start of the project, he says about the situation: "When the project was launched a year and a half ago, there was still a possible sale price of 450,000 euros for the site. But a lot has changed since then . . .