2024-02-25 05:06:23
In the soil protection strategy discussion, Lower Austria’s governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner (ÖVP) responded to the recent letter from Werner Kogler (Greens) addressed to her with a letter to the Vice Chancellor. The chairwoman of the state governors’ conference wants a discussion “within a reasonable framework”: “We federal states are continuing to contribute constructively to the debate and are ready to finalize a practical soil protection strategy.”
The correspondence was started by Kogler, who asked Mikl-Leitner in a letter this week to have a positive influence on reluctant federal states. The aim is to limit land consumption – as set out in the government program – to 2.5 hectares per day by 2030. It was said that the dangerous development in this area had been “criminally neglected” by many institutions, especially by the states responsible for spatial planning.
In her reply, Mikl-Leitner recalled that, in addition to soil protection, there were “many other legitimate concerns” among the population. Affordable housing, the expansion of child care and investments in the energy transition were mentioned. “And all of this doesn’t have to be a contradiction if you discuss and deal with it in a measured and sensible manner.”
In Lower Austria, 94 percent of which is covered by meadows and forests, fields, mountains and bodies of water, “we also pay very close attention to how the remaining six percent of the country’s area is used.” Neither states nor municipalities have an interest in unnecessary land consumption. “But they have an interest in helping their compatriots, for example with kindergartens and affordable housing – and if these are not to remain castles in the air, then there is also a need for land in the country, within reasonable limits.”
“Looking at it objectively and sensibly,” there will “continue to be areas in the future for which land will have to be reused,” emphasized the state leader. The energy transition and the associated new substations, power lines, PV systems and wind turbines, which would seal areas but also contribute to climate and environmental protection, were explicitly discussed here. “But it is also true that we should do what we can to protect our soil from excessive construction.”
Mikl-Leitner referred to the available expertise. “Just because we are close to our compatriots, we in the states and communities know very well how important it is for our country to keep the ecology and economy in harmony, to protect our climate and to improve our quality of life, our competitiveness and our prosperity preserve – and we do that too,” the ÖVP politician emphasized in the letter. “I am very happy to support an intelligent balance of interests between the practical protection of natural areas and the enablement of new living space and other future projects.”
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