Environmental victory: Court stops controversial motorway planning for Marchfeld!

Environmental victory: Court stops controversial motorway planning for Marchfeld!

The Federal Administrative Court has decided that the construction of Marchfeld-Schnellstrasse cannot be approved, since it would result in considerable impairments for the European protection area. According to the judges, it may only be built in a "special protected area" if there are no alternatives that are less harmful, and only if compelling public interests outweigh the nature conservation goals. Wolfgang Rehm, spokesman for the environmental organizations Virus and BIM, commented on this historical decision by finding that for the first time in Austria, a motorway project was not given a positive notice of environmental impact, despite extreme privilege. This shows that the focus is on environmental protection and traffic policy and that the result should not surprise anyone, as bverwg.de reported.

negative decision and history

The judgment of the 4th Senate was neither lightly made nor was it unexpected. The authority should have made a similar decision in 2016, which was now finally revised. In an earlier assessment, the Higher Administrative Court rejected the application for a building preliminary decision for the expansion of an old building in Berlin. The reason for the negative decisions were exceeded by the specified number of floors (GFZ), which is specified by the building regulations. The plaintiff argued that these stipulations had become obsolete, but the courts came to the opposite conclusion that the planning as a whole was still valid and the corresponding regulations should maintain the urban order.

With the abolition of the judgment of the Higher Administrative Court by the Federal Administrative Court, the case is now referred back to a new examination. It can be seen that even with complex legal questions, a strict look at the applicable regulations and their effects on the environment is essential. This underlines the importance of environmental protection measures and the responsible handling of natural resources, which can also be seen as a positive signal for the sustainability strategy in Austria and beyond.