Dispute over "Papieri" site in Grellingen
The construction of apartments is planned on the site of Ziegler Papier AG in Grellingen (BL). After disagreements between the municipality and the builders, the project has now been "put on hold".
Since Ziegler Papier AG announced in 2016 that the company would cease production of fine and specialty papers at the Grellingen mill, the factory premises have been converted. After the large facilities were dismantled with the shift of the machines to China and India, the buildings are available for tenants. According to Ziegler Papier, a larger part of the property has already been rented commercially since the end of 2017.
There are also plans to gradually transform the industrial site into a residential area. To this end, the owners launched an architectural competition with the idea of converting some of the existing buildings, incorporating them as contemporary witnesses and adding new buildings. Plans that were initially well received by the Grelling municipal council - because the Ziegler site holds the potential for 1,000 new residents, which would allow the community to grow by more than 50 percent from its current population of around 1,850. As the "bz - Zeitung für die Region Basel" reportsThe municipal council had commissioned the "Fachkommission Ortskern" with the participation of the head of the civil engineering department and the president of the municipality to accompany the development of the 33,000-square-meter site. Within the framework of the test planning, an urban design concept was to be drawn up and, on the basis of this, a neighborhood plan.
However, disagreements arose between the municipal council and Ziegler Papier AG when it came to the details. According to "bz - Zeitung für die Region Basel", the municipality is interested in including the entire site in a neighborhood plan and then implementing this in stages within the framework of subzone plans. Ziegler AG, on the other hand, wants to integrate only part of the site into the planning for the time being. In the meantime, the district planning has been "put on ice"; however, according to the newspaper, the municipal council is still interested in continuing with the planning. (bw/mr)
