Many a city councilor would certainly be pleased about so much public interest: over 40 listeners filled the meeting room of the volkach town hall. Above all the topics mainlande and the changed building application of the company waterwalker lured the people into the meeting of the city council. He had previously seen the situation at the canoe rental company at a site visit on the river main.
The company offers not only the very popular tours on the altmain with canoes, kayaks and stand-up-paddles, but from friday to sunday also a kind of beer garden on the river main. It goes by the name of "maindeck" and has been open to everyone since this year. Originally the gastronomy there was planned as a pure catering station for company events, for a stop after paddling. The hitherto partly provisional character of the boat rental and beer garden is now to change for good according to the will of the owner markus schonfelder.
A 17.40 wide and 14.40 meter deep building on stilts with a monopitch roof is to be erected there at the southern tip of the volkach mainland. A large room for training and catering is planned on the top floor, with a commercial wing underneath plus parking spaces on the ground between the stilts. Makes a height of 11.80 meters. That is about one and a half meters more than the original building application. The district office had approved it in 2012. Actually, on monday evening in the volkach city council, it was only a matter of changing this application, a tektur.
Is a new building application necessary?
But even then there was no agreement. "The building permit expires if construction has not begun within four years, doesn’t it??", wanted to know jochen flammersberger (burgerliste). Mayor peter kornell (freie wahler), on the other hand, assumed that schonfelder had "already started the construction work" have. What then: tektur or new building application? Corinna petzold, press spokeswoman for the district office, said on request that they had been notified that construction would begin in 2016. Thus, the four-year permit would still be in order. The district office will now ask the owner for a statement.
Christoph schonfelder of waterwalker gmbh was confident in this regard the day after the council meeting. "The construction has definitely begun." he also emphasized that their project was not comparable with the stilt hotel on the other side of the bridge, which was rejected by the burgers. "We cover at the most the view to the clearing plant and baywa, not to the chapel maria im weingarten." they had received very good feedback from the volkacher burgers so far.
Waterwalker as part of the mainland concept
Schonfelder was pleased with the idea from the city council meeting that the planners of the office arc.The concept for the mainland should also include the waterwalker area. Since it is privately leased and therefore not subject to claims, it has not been part of the concept so far. Among others, city councilor dieter sollner (SPD) had suggested that this should be done. "That would be good to have everything from a single source." a conviction shared by the entire committee. All together could then be discussed at the castle meeting in november (date not yet fixed).
Until then, there are still a few points to be clarified: are the planned 18 parking spaces for boaters and gastro guests sufficient?? How can all the traffic there be well regulated?? And do the people of volkach want a gastronomy on stilts at all?? Mayor kornell called it "a good offer", whereas burgerliste and grune are critical of the project. "We do not find it worthy of support that in times of climate change twelve meter high buildings are placed in flood plains" write andrea rauch and doris geiger from the grune local group.
The need for discussion is obviously still great. A motion by heiko bauerlein (CSU) was therefore followed unanimously by the city council right at the beginning of the meeting: discuss yes, please, but the building application should be voted on later.