Magden Municipal Council Defends Location of New Asylum Accommodation on Edge of Forest

The Magden municipal council has taken precautions: Instead of the usual meeting after the residents’ community meeting, this time the local citizens’ meeting will take place beforehand. “We don’t want them to have to wait until late,” says mayor André Schreyer. He knows: On the agenda for Friday, June 16, which included eleven items for the community, there is also a thoroughly controversial project.

The municipality would like to build a central asylum accommodation with 76 places in a new building on the site of the old forestry depot. The municipal council is applying for a commitment loan of CHF 3.45 million for this. Due to the urgency, the building application has already been prepared and has been publicly available since May 22nd.

Refugees «deported» to the edge of the forest?

Since it became known, the project has sparked discussions in the village – and some criticism. It was heard, for example, that the refugees, who are now mostly housed in rented accommodation and apartments, would be deported from the village to the edge of the forest.

Local councilor Roger Sprenger, who is responsible for asylum, does not want to know anything about this. «Magden is a village and the distances are correspondingly short. It is a ten minute walk to the center and five minutes to the nearest bus stop. There are various residential buildings in the immediate vicinity,” he says. The asylum seekers would also be looked after closely by an external specialist agency. “There can be no question of ‘deported’ in any way.”

Rather, there is an “urgent need for action” in the area of ​​asylum, according to Sprenger. On the one hand, the background is the current situation of the accommodation and its uncertain future: Several leases for asylum apartments and accommodation in the village will expire in the course of the next year. Finding other rental properties is hardly possible, says Sprenger. On the other hand, the municipal council assumes that the admission requirement will continue to increase in the coming months.

Ready for occupancy in summer 2024 at the earliest

If the community does not meet these requirements, there is a risk of compensatory levies, and at a sensitive level at that: If the obligation to admit cannot be met, a flat-rate fee will be charged. If all tenancies were lost, a replacement tax of almost CHF 1.1 million would be due – per year. “If there were a higher admission requirement, it would be even more,” says Sprenger.

With the new asylum accommodation, on the other hand, the municipality sees itself in a good position: “The advantage of the wooden modular construction is that any additions or redimensioning are possible at any time and we are correspondingly flexible,” says Sprenger. The 76 people in the 19 rooms are also “the maximum occupancy”, which is unlikely to be reached immediately after completion.

The schedule envisages that the accommodation will be ready for occupancy in the summer or autumn of 2024, provided the assembly votes yes. A precision landing in view of the expiring leases.