Bundling synergies was an essential aspect of the establishment of the integrated rural development ILE “Main-Wein-Garten” in the communities of Erlabrunn, Himmelstadt, Leinach, Margetshöchheim, Retzstadt, Thüngersheim, Zell and Zellingen in 2014. Successful projects of intermunicipal cooperation since then have been, for example, the transfer of registry office tasks, kindergarten management, the local supply investigation or even a homeless cooperation. The attempt to network the so-called eco-accounts of the member communities, on the other hand, is not making good progress.
According to the Federal Environment Agency, an eco-account helps a municipality to document and prepare for the implementation of nature conservation or building law intervention regulations. This means that if agricultural areas are converted into industrial areas, other areas often have to be specified as so-called compensation areas in the interests of environmental protection. Such compensatory and replacement measures are scored and listed in the eco-account according to their ecological value.
How does a joint eco-account work?
But what is a common eco-account? The meaning and purpose of this collaboration is apparently interpreted differently by the members of the alliance. The Zell and Leinach councils in particular are skeptical. The idea was recently rejected in Leinach. The municipal council of Zell is still in the process of making a decision.
That the community of Leinach – equipped with one of the largest municipal areas in the district and a correspondingly high proportion of compensation and ecological areas – unanimously rejected participation in October, surprised the other communities of the ILE. However, the decision was made by the local council on a misleading basis. Because the formulation of the agenda item was: “Advice and decision-making on the establishment of an intermunicipal eco-account within the framework of ILE cooperation”.
“That is exactly not the goal,” says ILE chairman and Thüngersheim’s mayor Michael Röhm. Instead, the respective eco-accounts of the member communities should be created individually and then networked. The website of the Bavarian State Office for the Environment clarifies the subject in a generally understandable manner.
Use the regional pool of compensation areas
The ILE boss explains: “In the structural development of a community, evidence of compensatory and replacement measures is usually required. Their listing, mapping and recognition under nature conservation law by the lower nature conservation authority are listed in the eco-account.
The member communities of the ILE “Main-Wein-Garten” should now first determine the current current situation. The costs for this are estimated at 80,000 euros, of which, according to Röhm, eighty percent are funded.
The next step would be the inter-municipal networking of the eco-accounts of the eight ILE member municipalities. According to Böhm, this means that a municipality can give another member municipality areas or points in return for financial compensation. This could benefit all communities in the ILE.
Intermunicipal cooperation also on ecological issues
Allianz manager Anna Klüpfel adds: “The member communities can use a regional pool for building projects that might not even be implemented without the evidenced compensatory measures.”
Margetshöchheim’s mayor and former ILE chairman and Waldemar Brohm sees “ecological responsibility, which does not end at a municipal boundary, as a predestined example of intermunicipal cooperation.” According to Brohm, “the obvious fear of individual council members about access to zoning plans, development plans or compensation areas from outside” is completely unnecessary.
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