If you live in Germany....owning a house, there is this crisis problem which lingers in your mind, and pops up every once in a while....the street renovation deal. HR, our regional public TV network, brought up the topic today.
When a mayor and city council draw up a plan to 'rehab' a street (basically to repave it).....unless it's the main thoroughfare of the village or town, there's going to be a design study and assessment carried out, with the cost of the final project laid out in square meters. If you house occupies x-amount of square meters.....you will get a bill from the city to cover your 'contribution' to the final bill.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s....this meant around 5,000 to 10,000 D-Marks (roughly $2,500 to $5,000). It was a fairly hefty amount. Today? You could be talking about 20,000 Euro (roughly $25,000). Some guys with larger lots, and it being a corner lot.....could be dragged into a 60,000 Euro tax (roughly $75,000).
This escalation in cost? It's related to oil prices going up and manpower cost of road construction.
Naturally, this is driving massive discontent in villages....with people vowing to vote out any mayor or city council group who brings up the road renovation chatter.
In the Hungen region of Hessen.....4,000 folks signed a petition to bring up a referendum....to change this problem around. The city? They have fought the petition by saying it was wrongly worded.
Why fight the cost issue? Most community leaders see renovation of streets necessary to demonstrate to businesses looking to locate to the town, or to new prospective buyers of property....that this is a 'fine' place to live and it has nice streets.
So HR brought this topic....the SPD Party of Hessen wants to take the rule apart and funnel only state money into the problem.....leaving the private property owners out of this mess. The cost? Oh.....well.....the ballpark figure is 60-million Euro. It's questionable if this is enough, and I might go and speculate that cost might be five times that amount in the end. No one seems to ever go and add up the village by village or city by city cost on road renovation.
Where would the money come from? Unknown. Supported by other opposition parties? NO....both the Greens and CDU appear to be against the change.
The problem is this issue just sits there and simmers. Massive frustration and hostility exists between residents and their city council. Some folks will receive a 50,000 Euro fee cost, and at age 65.....they can't readily walk into a bank and borrow the money.....so they end up selling the property to avoid the cost factor. Forced movement? This is the ongoing trend, and people think there is a certain unfairness to the whole discussion.
On ranking of problems? If you own property....it's on your top 100 issues to worry about.
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