Citizen Benefit
Citizens benefit is an urban assets with right of use by the citizens. Among other things, this includes Gabholz , an old custom that is still in force in various municipalities today. According to this, the long-established residents can obtain a certain amount of firewood per year from the municipality free of charge if they meet the relevant requirements.
history
This right to receive wood from the municipality's own forest has existed since the Middle Ages . The forest was part of the commons and while the other rights such as fattening and grazing rights , mill rights , fishing rights and other rights have changed, the benefit of the people in relation to wood has been preserved to this day.
Germany
This customary law was regulated by law in the Baden municipal code of 1831. Either the eldest son of a commercial citizen inherited it or a man entered the waiting list at the earliest 25 years of age. If a utility citizen died or left the community, the next one moved up on the waiting list and bought himself a lifelong fee in the citizen utility. Every year, the wooden star was publicly raffled, so that the quality of the wood and the place where the wood was in the forest was left to the lot. The wood was used as firewood or construction wood.
The Baden municipal code of 1921 abolished this right for municipalities with over 10,000 inhabitants. In the municipal code of Baden-Württemberg that came into force in 1955, citizens' use was only allowed for municipalities with less than 3,000 inhabitants. The law on the parishioners assets determined in 1966 that all former Baden communities must leave the Nutzbürgerrecht leak.
Switzerland
Gabholz is still granted in Switzerland today. For example, in 2004 the community of Rothenfluh issued a new “Gabholzreglement”.
Utility citizen
Useful citizens are the community members who are entitled to a certain amount of wood from the community's own forest for private use every year.
literature
- Bernward Damm: Baden's citizen benefits are dying out. In: Heilbronner Voice of December 14, 1983
Web links
- "Gabholz: a social commons" by Silke Helfrich