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The chambers of industry and commerce in the Rhine-Neckar region warn of conflicts between residential development and commercial development. A study is to explore the possibilities.
The chambers of industry and commerce (IHK) of the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region are warning of increasing competition between commercial areas and residential areas. Additional commercial space would be required in the coming years. As a current study by the Rhein-Neckar Region Association shows, there will be an additional 1,500 hectares required by 2035. However, in the regional area planning, which will be partially updated in 2021, only 1010 hectares of potential areas are shown, so 500 hectares are missing, the IHKs announced in a press conference on Monday.
To compensate for this, additional areas would have to be sought. One regards it with concern that, in the event of conflicts, the development of space is often promoted unilaterally in favor of residential development and uses other than commercial uses. “It takes long-term planning to provide space,” says Albrecht Hornbach, President of the Palatinate Chamber of Commerce. The port areas in particular would come under increasing pressure because the residential areas were moving closer.
From the point of view of the economy, the efficient use of existing space is the most important factor in designing space developments responsibly. Matthias Martiné, President of the IHK Darmstadt-Rhein-Main-Neckar, said that the framework conditions for this would have to be shaped by politics. The regional economy wants to make a contribution to this joint task in dialogue with municipalities, cities and the region. The opportunity lies “in the development of intermunicipal areas and the redefinition of urban-rural relationships”.
The IHKs commissioned a study to provide an impetus for how commercial areas can be developed across the federal states and municipalities. This focuses on a cross-border corridor between Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg north of the A6, which, as a border region, has not previously been the focus of the planners. Here, potential areas for regionally significant commercial developments are to be found.
Above all, it should be taken into account how commercial areas can be developed in the future, also with regard to factors such as housing, traffic and digitization.
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