Lawsuit against outlet expansion: Homburg's city center in danger!

Lawsuit against outlet expansion: Homburg's city center in danger!

The plans for expanding the Fashion Outlet Zweibrücken ensure heated debates in the surrounding region. The Homburg city council recently decided to submit a lawsuit against the approved expansion from 21,000 to 29,500 square meters of sales space. This was decided in a session that took place on Thursday evening. With more than two thirds of the votes, 32 of the 47 council members present spoke out for this step. Homburg's mayor Michael Forster considered the decision to protect the city center of Homburg, which in his opinion is endangered by the expansion.

The decision to complain is not surprising, because in August 2023 the SGD Süd had approved the target deviation, despite the contradictions made on time on the part of the cities of Saarbrücken, Homburg and Neunkirchen. However, these contradictions have been rejected because the contradictory cities lack the necessary authority. These facts further heated the discussion within the Homburg council. The CDU parliamentary group leader Michael Rippel supported the lawsuit, while the SPD parliamentary group leader Pascal Conigliaro doubted the meaningfulness of this decision. He advocated using the financial means more sensible.

costs and cooperation

The estimated costs for the lawsuit are between 100,000 and 150,000 euros. In order to cope with this financial burden, Homburg plans to cooperate with the city of Neunkirchen on the dividing of costs. This strategic cooperation could bring both legal and financial advantages for both cities and shows that the concerns about the expansion of outlet are not only discussed at the political level.

The city of Zweibrücken had already made an application to expand the outlet center in February 2022, in which changes to the land use plan and the drawing up of a development plan were required. The Zweckverband Development Airfield Zweibrücken is currently working on the list of this development plan, which opens up the possibility of legally taking action after it has been issued.

regional effects

The expansion of the outlet center is considered potentially harmful to the city center of Homburg, which is concerned with the city's political decision-makers. These concerns are also reflected in the reactions of the other cities involved that had opposed the decision of the SGD Süd.

For more information on the individual aspects of this topic see Homburg1 and ehi .