Hans Küppers (politician)

Candidate poster for the state election in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1980

Hans-Heiner Küppers (born February 12, 1934 in Duisburg ; † February 17, 2009 in Neuss ) was a German politician (CDU) and urban planner .

Life

Küppers was born in Duisburg on a Rose Monday and grew up there. After studying law, he joined the public service of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1963 , where he was responsible for urban and village renewal and urban development in the Ministry of the Interior. In 1978, Lord Mayor Walter Wallmann brought him to Frankfurt am Main , where he became head of planning in the magistrate . There he was responsible for the areas of building management, planning, surveying and cadastre , building supervision , building construction including monument preservation , road, bridge and tunnel construction including road and traffic planning , sewer and hydraulic engineering as well as the underground. After eleven years he was voted out of office by the SPD and the Greens and returned to the Rhineland . Until his retirement (1994) he was a construction and planning consultant in Düsseldorf . During his tenure in Düsseldorf, among other things, the construction of the film museum and the Kölner Strasse subway line fell. In the following years he represented clients in construction and land law as a lawyer at the Düsseldorf Regional Court .

Küppers had been married to Marina Pfeffer since 1972. In 1998 he was honored with the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon. In his spare time he devoted himself to rowing despite his weight . Since 1954 he was a member of the Catholic student association KDStV Arminia Heidelberg .

Urban planning and urban development

For Küppers with a doctorate, urban development funding was not just a duty, it was a matter close to his heart. His energetic way of getting his ideas across, often pushed his ability to listen to the political background. As a result, his actions, especially in Düsseldorf, were never undisputed. He provoked and astonished his entire political environment with his decisions, which were often seen as rough, not only the Roman opposition of the SPD and the GREEN in Frankfurt, but also his own political home CDU , especially in Düsseldorf.

In the history of the city ​​of Frankfurt, the name Küppers will always be associated with the planned construction of the " Campanile high-rise " at the main train station . It was Küppers who, shortly before the local elections in 1989, obtained the first partial building permit for the tower despite the lack of approval from the neighbors . So the partial building permit was then also collected by the competent court, the high-rise never built. In its political shadow, other plans of Küppers threaten to go under, such as the old opera , the half-timbered row on the Römerberg (Ostzeile), the new pedestrian zones in the city center and the complex "Merton-Viertel" project on the former site of the, also because of some contaminated sites United German Metal Works (VDM). With his work, Küppers made a not inconsiderable contribution to overcoming structural war damage.

In Düsseldorf, the construction of the Rhine bank tunnel was a project to which Düsseldorf owes the opening of the city to the Rhine and many new impulses for the development of the inner city.

politics

CDU member Küppers was on the one hand recognized for his assertiveness, but also controversial. The political opposition often accused him of lack of conception concealed by affability . It also always accommodated investor wishes and relied on the massing of inner-city office space. Ultimately, he left the Mertonviertel to urban sprawl. Before the urban renewal and redevelopment measures began in 1985 in southern Ostend, he provoked the professional world by saying that there was a historically and psychologically justifiable phenomenon that "the eastern part of numerous large cities around the world traditionally has less residential quality than the west". All the more, however, once the urban redevelopment measures there have been completed, the Ostend should become a “quality bridge” in order to break away from its former function as a location for the manufacturing industry “and in the long term to be home to offices and administrative-like forms of business that have so far primarily been in the banking and train station district as well as in the Westend . "

literature

• Küppers, Hans; The financing of the renovation and development measures according to the Urban Development Act: Lecture given in the 38th course d. Inst. "Urban Development and Law" from February 21 to 25, 1972 - Inst. For Urban Development Berlin d. German Akad. For urban planning a. State planning, 1972
• Küppers, Hans; Urban development and urban redevelopment as a means of structural and economic policy, housing construction in times of crisis p. 69–82, Working Group for Housing, Urban Planning a. Spatial planning to d. Ruhr-Univ., Bochum 1974
• Küppers, Hans; Financing options from the point of view of the federal states, 76th course Inst. Für Städtebau Berlin from November 3rd to 7th, 1975, Dt. Akad. For urban planning a. State planning, Berlin 1975
• Küppers, Hans; The systematics of planning-relevant funding provisions, Die alte Stadt.-Zeitschrift für Stadtgeschichte, Stadtsoziologie und Denkmalpflege Vol. 5, 1978 p. 217
• Küppers, Hans u. Engelberg, Walter; Gardens in urban development: How can the tasks set by the new allotment garden law be solved in the municipalities - planning - renovation - financing ?, 171st course d. Inst. F. Urban planning 7. – 8. June 1983 in Oberhausen, Berlin 1983
• Küppers, Hans; Urban planning prerequisites for securing and expanding the commercial stock using the example of Frankfurt / Main, documentation of the symposium “Future tasks of renewal, ecology and transport in our cities and municipalities of the economy - outlines, approaches, perspectives” June 3rd and 4th 1985 Bonn , Federal Minister for Spatial Planning, Building and Urban Development, Series 03 "Urban Development Research" by the Federal Minister for Regional Planning, Building and Urban Development, Issue No. 03.115 "New Urban Planning Tasks", pp. 74–79, Bonn 1986

swell

1. ↑ Enrico Santifaller, On the current Frankfurt planning (un) culture - Bauwelt, issue 13, February 2, 2004, pp. 30–31 (manuscript version).
2. ↑ Frankfurter Nachrichten of January 24, 1985, p. 9.