Patrick Henry Village

 For those who've ever served in the US Army and done time in the Heidelberg region of Germany.....you probably familiar with Patrick Henry Village. There's old history to it, and there's going to be some new history to it.

After WW II....around 1947, basic plans were laid out and an 'town' (post) was laid out.  It was based around the SW end of Heidelberg....maybe five miles from the center-point of town.  If you took Speyer Strasse, it was a 25-minute bike ride.

Just about every decade, some major change came to PHV, with the peak in the 1980s.....with around 16,000 residents.

If you gaze at the location today....it lays between A535 and A5.  The US turned the property over to the Germans in 2014.  

Since that point, a lot of local chatter has occurred over the future use of PHV.  SWR (public TV for the region) tells the basic story.

After a couple of years of discussions and plans drawn up.....what is on the board now is something called a "ecological lighthouse project".  An entire neighborhood of around 10,000 residents.  

A 'ultra-green' housing project, with bike paths, gardens?  Yeah.  For the people who want a taste of rural living, yet be within a 25-minute bike ride to the center of town....it makes perfect sense.

So enters this problem....for the past couple of years....because PHV was empty, it made sense to re-use the post for refugee housing.  It was the ONLY site in the entire state of Baden-Wurttemberg....that offered immediate 'quarters' to refugees upon arrival.  

The city drew up the next plan....to move the refugees out...over to a point about three miles north....to a site called the Wolf's Garden.  If you were gazing at the map...it's about 300 feet from the junction of the A5 and A656 autobahns.  If you looked at the site today....it's a farmer's field (plowed-up). No one says much but it would probably be paved-up....with modular building established for the refugees.

Well...the pro-refugee crowd jumped up and said this Wolf's Garden area is not positive (too much noise off the autobahns intersecting).  

No one says much but the footprint of the refugees (less than a thousand) isn't that big.  So it kinda occurred to me....why not just build some refugee village at the very end of this PHV new urban neighborhood and just leave them there?  

Well....that idea didn't seem to come up....or the PHV developers want a plan without refugees in it.

So the city has an referendum election coming up here on Sunday....do you (the public) want the refugee center moved to the Wolf's Garden, or kept there at PHV?

Various other groups funneling into this discussion?  If you live out on the western end of Heidelberg (along B37)...you probably aren't that keen to having the Wolf's Garden as the choice....because that might put more refugees into your part of town.  PHV had the factor of being far out away from town, and the locals were used to Americans there.  

The idea that the whole new development idea (the lighthouse project) being dumped?  No one says that, but if you look at the discussion....it's hard to avoid that topic.  PHV staying more or less like it is....for another thirty-odd years?  Yeah, I'd kind of suggest that.  Locals might eventually agree to some name change, but that might be the only thing achieved in the end.  

UPDATE: The referendum results from the vote?  The Wolf's Garden idea was a pretty solid 'no'.  There were enough votes to settle that question.  What next?  There is a suggestion that the state authorities may examine the whole question, and look for another location for the refugee 'center'.  The city's determination to move forward on a major use of PHV (new neighborhood for the city, 10,000 potential residents) is pretty solid.  

I think their chief problem....one segment of the state believes all of the former US Army posts are perfect for the refugee requirement, and another segment has thoroughly worked up renovation plans to flip the former Army posts into new neighborhoods.