East Frisian march between the north and Esens
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Bird sanctuary (SPA)
"East Frisian Sea March between North and Esens" |
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 View over the bird sanctuary in the Hilgenriedersiel area (aerial photo, 2013) |
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| location | Districts Aurich and Wittmund , Lower Saxony , Germany | |
| surface | 80.43 km² | |
| Identifier | V 63 | |
| WDPA ID | 555537312 | |
| Natura 2000 ID | DE-2309-431 | |
| Geographical location | 53 ° 40 ′ N , 7 ° 29 ′ E | |
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| Setup date | 2007 | |
| administration | NLWKN | |
The bird sanctuary Ostfriesische Seemarsch between the north and Esens (identification V63) is a bird sanctuary in Hinterdeich between the small towns of Norden and Esens in East Friesland . The area became known because the joint community of Esens near Bensersiel built a 2.1 kilometer long and 8.2 million euro bypass road across the area despite knowledge of the possible protection status . This was judged by court rulings from 2013 to 2015 as inadmissible road planning.
Bird sanctuary
The area is 8043 hectares and was used for agriculture. In addition to grassland , it consists of belts of reeds and old drainage canals. According to the criteria of the Flora-Fauna-Habitat Directive , the area is important for birds and should therefore be placed under protection, but was not formally reported to Brussels until 2006. Therefore one spoke of a "de facto bird sanctuary". The area borders directly on the Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park .
In 2003 the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Environment under Environment Minister Hans-Heinrich Sander ( FDP ) only reported bluethroat and Montagu's Harrier as bird species worthy of protection in the area. The European level then reported back: too few breeding and guest bird species for an area worthy of protection. The Wadden Council then provided an expert opinion on what ornithologists knew : barnacle goose , gray goose (Anser Anser) and some waders of the Wadden Sea use the area regularly. In 2006 , the EU Commission instructed Lower Saxony to register the area later and threatened to pay fines if it was disregarded. Lower Saxony finally reported the bird sanctuary V 63 correctly to Brussels, but excluded the route of a planned bypass road when registering the area.
In the spring of 2014 led Lower Saxony Environment Minister Stefan Wenzel ( Green ) in the wake of the ongoing legal process on the state Vogelschutzwarte an extension of the bird sanctuary 8043 hectares in area Esens at first on 8054 hectares, after protests in the consultation process on 8070 hectare. In February 2016, the Wittmund district submitted a draft according to which a large area called "LSG 25 II Ostfriesische Seemarsch between the north and Esens in the Bensersiel area, Esens municipality, Wittmund district" could be declared a landscape protection area. This also includes the EU bird sanctuary V 63 in the Bensersiel area. This would also give the area the status of landscape protection area under German nature conservation law. The regulation prohibits u. a. to hunt in the area, to build wind turbines or to build new roads or paths as well as to expand previously unpaved roads.
Bensersiel bypass L5
In 2000, the city of Esens started the planning approval and land consolidation process after consultation with the Lower Saxony Ministry of Transport for the planned bypass road from the north to Esens. A 2.1 kilometer long “municipal relief road” was to be built, which was to lead in an arc around the port village. In the course of the proceedings, the owner of the area, who did not want to sell, was expropriated by means of a property assignment.
In 2003, the " public interest bodies " and nature conservation associations began to participate in the process. The BUND and the Wattenrat Ostfriesland drew attention to the incompatibility of the road planning with the EU legal requirements and rejected the project. In the proposed resolution, the 34-page statement "due to the length of the text" was not printed in full (Annex to the proposed resolution, City of Esens, July 15, 2004), but it was available to the parliamentary groups. The Council took note of all objections, but without consequences.
In March 2003, citizens of Bensersiel collected around 200 signatures against the bypass, as they feared that it would lead potential guests past their location. In 2004, changes to the spatial planning began, which was a prerequisite for the construction.
In 2008, the expropriated owner sued the Lüneburg Higher Administrative Court against the new development plan no. 67. The municipality of Esens declared that the bypass road was not in the bird sanctuary and was right.
On April 22nd, 2009 the groundbreaking ceremony for the road construction will take place. At the beginning of 2010, the Esens City Council decided on a new development plan no. 72, without any changes in the key points affecting the area.
The former owner moved to the Federal Administrative Court (BVG) in Leipzig in 2010 . In 2013 the Higher Administrative Court ruled: The development plan no. 72 of the community was "legally ineffective" from the start. A year later, the BVG determined that "inadmissible road planning in a de facto bird sanctuary cannot be cured by a subsequent area report". In 2015, the court declared that the land consolidation must therefore be lifted. De facto, this means that the plaintiff would have to get his property back and the street would have to be torn down, since EU and German law had been violated or disregarded at least from 2003 onwards.
Uilke van der Meer from BUND pointed out in 2014 that so-called relief roads were knowingly built in extensively used, sensitive grassland in Neßmersiel , Harlesiel or Carolinensiel . All of these are interventions in the de facto bird sanctuary V 63. “They are actually all illegal - only there is no plaintiff there.” With that, she compared his situation with Bensersiel.
financing
The road cost 8.2 million euros. Three quarters were financed by the federal government and the state, the rest was taken over by the city of Esens. This financial construct was doubtful, wrote the Weser Kurier. The Lower Saxony State Audit Office examined the process. A city official from Esens told the Weser Kurier in 2015 that the demolition of the road would cost four to five million euros. Mayor of the municipality Harald Hinrichs said that a possible dismantling and the repayment of more than five million euros in funding would deprive the 7,000-inhabitant city of any financial leeway for one or two decades.
Publications
- (2014) Case law administrative courts: On the strict protective regime of Art . 4 para. 4 sentence 1 of the V-RL. Nature and Law , July 2014, Springer.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ NDR: Bensersiel: bypass road is threatened with demolition. In: www.ndr.de. Retrieved May 16, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Bensersiel bypass: nine million euros wasted? In: NWZonline. Retrieved May 16, 2016 .
- ↑ DRAFT: Ordinance of the Landscape Protection Area 25 II "East Frisian Sea March between the North and Esens in the Bensersiel area, Esens municipality, Wittmund district"
- ↑ OVG Lüneburg 1 KN 149/05
- ↑ Esenser Citizens' Initiative | Press release on the municipal relief road from November 18, 2013. (No longer available online.) In: esenserbuergerinitiative.de. Archived from the original on May 17, 2016 ; accessed on May 17, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Federal Administrative Court | Press release. In: www.bverwg.de. Retrieved May 16, 2016 .
- ^ A b Ministry wants to keep illegal roads - Bremen and the surrounding area - WESER-KURIER. In: www.weser-kurier.de. Retrieved May 16, 2016 .
- ↑ Land tricks with bird sanctuary - Bremen and surroundings - WESER-KURIER. In: www.weser-kurier.de. Retrieved May 16, 2016 .
