In Vienna-Donaustadt is created on around 26 hectares a new quarter – the „Obere Hausfeld“The area is located a little further west than Seestadt Aspern and is directly on the U2 subway line. The new district being planned here is to be “urban and car-free” and 3,600 apartments will be built here. One of the city’s key requirements for the new residential area was that everything within the area should be accessible on foot. To make this possible, the residential buildings are grouped around a central park.
For the project area “Oberes Hausfeld” a Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)) was carried out. The result shocked Environmental organisations and citizens’ initiatives According to the decision, 80 percent of the district can be built and settled – but for the remaining 20 percent there is a condition: that the adjacent roads and highways are built first. Specifically, this concerns the S1-Spange and S1-Nord as well as the LobautunnelAccording to Wolfgang Rehm of the Environmental organization VIRUS It has been clear for years that the Vienna city government is using housing construction as an instrument for implementing desired road construction projects. Seestadt Aspern It was like that too, says Rehm, referring to the part in the north.
“The district is divided into two Subway stations and a bus connection has been developed – there is no need to link this with the road projects,” emphasises Stefan Eisinger-Sewald, managing director of the property developer Kallcowhich is building 1,300 apartments in the “Oberes Hausfeld”. The U2 subway line will stop here from 2026, when the first houses in the urban development area are due to be ready for occupancy. Reports are also already available which state that the new district is well served by the existing infrastructure.
Amendment to the EIA
Nonetheless stalls Now the construction. “No developer will build apartments if he is not allowed to settle in them,” says Stefan Eisinger-Sewald. For this reason, the environmental organization Virus, the developer Kallco and the citizens’ initiative BNWN (Citizens’ Network for the Transport Region of Vienna, Lower Austria) have jointly submitted an amendment to the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of urban development projects this week. Oberes Hausfeld submitted – in the hope that this point can be amended.