In expensive parts of Hamburg, resistance quickly arises when the accommodation of refugees is planned. In a current case, a citizens’ initiative announced a flood of lawsuits as soon as building permits for a comparatively small accommodation were received. The city faces a challenge as it encounters wealthy residents who claim to act in the refugees’ interests.
“Where are they supposed to shop? There is no Aldi nearby” – that was one of the worried arguments expressed by some Harvestehuders in 2015 when 220 refugees were to be accommodated at the Sophienterrassen.
Always looking at other people’s wealth is not nice for poor people. Now the lack of a discount store within walking distance in Flottbek is also one of the reasons given against the containers in the parking lot on Ohnhorststrasse.
Since the city’s plans became known, emotions have been running high in the upscale neighborhood that has had no refugees for years. Strictly speaking, Ohnhorststrasse belongs to Osdorf, but that sounds like a high-rise development and doesn’t do justice to the beautiful properties at the Botanical Garden.
The “Flottbek Citizens’ Initiative for Adequate Refugee Accommodation” (“Flottbek” has now been replaced by “Hamburg”) has already collected almost 2,000 signatures. Almost 1,000 more people signed an online petition.
The activists, who, according to their own statements, include “architects, doctors, lawyers, philosophers,” present themselves as a kind of Robin Hood association for the interests of refugees. They are looking forward to the first people seeking protection in the district, they are waiting with open arms, but they just want to save them having to stay in the parking lot: there is no space for play equipment there, no parking spaces for the refugees’ cars, buses and S-Bahn trains pass by , people sit as if on a platter.
Zero peace and privacy. Park visitors with walkers would have to park further away. There is no church community with volunteers anywhere. And the discounter is also missing.
As was once the case in Harvestehude and Blankenese, a counter-initiative quickly formed among the Flottbekers. A banner is already waving on a balcony on Heinrich-Plett-Straße, which leads along Loki-Schmidt-Garten: “Refugees welcome”.
Park resident Stephan Krull (75) from the newly founded “Solidarity Initiative Flottbek” told Mopo: “We are outraged that this initiative is immediately threatening lawsuits. That’s not interaction. We all have responsibility for the community, and that includes accepting refugees, including in Flottbek. You can’t always point the finger at others.”
Of Altona’s district politicians, only FDP parliamentary group leader Katarina Blume is supporting the initiative. She lives near the planned accommodation and defends herself against the accusation that the FDP is a party of cold-heartedness. The location is simply unsuitable, purely from the perspective of the refugees, she repeats the opponents’ mantra.
When the Green district chief Stefanie von Berg shared a sharp anti-FDP comment from Mopo on social media, Blume said she got into a shitstorm. Von Berg has since deleted her post and the two experienced politicians are said to have gotten along again, as Mopo learned. But the episode shows the tension on everyone.
Wolfgang Arnhold, spokesman for the social authority, explains the advantages of the parking lot: “There are enough daycare centers, primary schools and secondary schools in the area.” The Elbe shopping center is 1.8 kilometers away, and the S-Bahn stops directly in front of the accommodation. The area is not ideal, which is why it has been left alone so far, but now the city has to take what it can get and the parking lot belongs to it.
So 144 people are to be accommodated there from 2025 to 2030, mostly families who will bring an estimated 20 school children and 20 daycare children with them. Trees and hedges should be largely spared.
Arnold rejects the opponents’ demand that the containers should be placed in the second parking lot at the Loki Schmidt Garden, where the university employees park: “We would have to cut down trees there, and because of the access roads there would be less space for the containers .”
The city also cannot simply take over the empty private nursing homes in Nienstedten; they would have to be rented or bought and that is pretty much the most expensive option.
Accommodation for 144 people that will be dismantled in five years and then such an outcry? Klaus Schomacker can only shake his head: “Honestly: what are we talking about?” The management consultant from Rissen unexpectedly became one of the most important political players in the city in 2016, as spokesman for the popular initiative “Hamburg for good integration”.
“144 refugees can be integrated well, even in Flottbek,” says Schomacker: “The situation cannot be compared to what it was back then.”
At that time, the aim was to stop the city from building large-scale accommodation for several thousand refugees in residential areas. 300 small accommodations for a maximum of 300 people each, that was the core demand of the initiative. At the end there were civil contracts with the city.
So far, 36 Flottbekers have been represented by lawyer Gero Tuttlewski, who, on behalf of three plaintiffs in Harvestehude, ensured that only 190 people moved into the former district military replacement office on Sophienterrasse and that the accommodation had to be vacated again in the summer of 2024. A little bonus on top: the city is not allowed to establish any social institutions there for the next 50 years.
On June 6th, the social authorities want to invite the people of Flottbeck to a citizens’ event in the auditorium of the Christianeum. As early as May, the “Solidarity Initiative” is planning a picnic for all neighbors in the hotly contested parking lot.
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The original of this article “The hypocritical fight for a mini asylum accommodation in Hamburg’s rich west” comes from Mopo.