Zurich: SP plans initiative against Hardturm project Ensemble
On November 25, the people of Zurich are to vote on the Ensemble stadium project on the Hardturm. In the run-up to the vote, the SP had strongly criticized the construction project. Now the party wants to launch an initiative against the project.
The Ensemble project envisages the construction of a soccer stadium as well as 174 non-profit and 600 private apartments on the 55,000 square meter Hardturm site. The total investment for the non-profit housing, the soccer stadium and two high-rise residential buildings amounts to around CHF 570 million, according to earlier information. The winners of an investor competition were HRS Real Estate, real estate investment vehicles of Credit Suisse and Allgemeine Baugenossenschaft Zürich (ABZ).
The Zurich Social Democrats are in favor of the cooperative housing development and the soccer stadium, but they are bothered by the planned 137-meter-high high-rise residential buildings, which were promised to investors as a return on investment when the tender was issued. Therefore, the SP rejects the project as a whole.
According to the SP, the apartments in the high-rise buildings would be very expensive and would therefore not solve the lack of affordable housing in the city of Zurich. According to the SP's statement, CS investment funds charge an average of about CHF 3,650 in rent per 100 square meters of living space to achieve a gross return of 4.5 percent. However, the Federal Court considers only yields up to 3.5 percent acceptable, it said. "The SP cannot possibly agree to an unacceptable return being achieved on urban land under building law," the Social Democrats said.
The SP therefore does not want to recommend the present project to the population for approval. Instead, it wants to launch the initiative "For a soccer stadium without billion-dollar rip-offs" and thus achieve that the city pays for the stadium itself and decides on the residential projects on the neighboring property alone. The delegates will soon decide whether the initiative will actually be launched. (ah)
