LES VILLES NOUVELLES DURABLES DU XXIème SIECLE - Free

Les villes nouvelles durables du XXIème siècle
Mémoire de recherche | Sébastien Vassaux
As a result, the Marburg dispute sometimes feels like an argument between the enlightened
environmentalists and the really enlightened environmentalists.
"Marburg is already a leader when it comes to the use of solar energy, but up until now
they've always tried to convince people rather than forcing them," said Hermann Uchtmann, the
opposition politician behind the "green dictatorship" charge who leads a local citizens political group,
the Marburger Bürgerliste.
Like Schönherr, who is also a member of the group, Uchtmann hardly fits the predictable mold
of the Luddite opponent of renewable energy.
He is a chemist at the local university who once built a solar‐powered desalinization plant for
the town's sister city of Sfax, Tunisia.
"It's unfortunate that they decided to compel people, because I think you breed opponents
that way rather than friends of solar energy," Uchtmann said. He said he found the demands too
invasive for existing homes, especially in the case of older citizens who might not live long enough to
justify the upfront costs of installing the solar systems.
"I'm right up against the border myself," said Uchtmann, who is 64. But he said he could
support a solar‐heating requirement for new buildings.
Because the town of 80,000 has a level population and relatively few new homes are built
here, restricting the measure to new construction would not go far enough for the politicians behind
it.
"We have a serious energy problem with the older homes," Marburg's deputy mayor, Franz
Kahle, said in an interview at the historic town hall on the city's colorful market square. To make a
real leap forward, he said, a dramatic step was necessary.
"Before, solar installations were the exception, and their absence was the rule," Kahle said.
"We want to get to the point where the opposite is the case." He pointed out that building codes
constantly dictated what property owners could and could not do with their homes and said the solar
regulation already offered exceptions for cases of hardship or alternatives for those living in the
shadiest spots.
Marburg's proposal, which is to go into effect on Oct. 1, has attracted attention nationwide as
a model for environmentally active politicians.
"What they are doing in Marburg is good and progressive, and we, and other cities, need to
move forward with similar initiatives as well," said Birgit Simon, a member of the Green Party and
deputy mayor of Offenbach am Main, a city just east of Frankfurt. She said she hoped a coalition of
left‐of‐center parties in the state Parliament could change the building codes to make the Marburg
ordinance sustainable and imitable.
Among Marburgers interviewed one sunny afternoon this week, there was near universal
support for the goals of the ordinance but an almost equal level of confusion about its exact nature.
"In principle, it's a really good idea," said Cornelia Janus, 35, who works at the university. But
she questioned whether the costs might be too high and whether historic buildings and monuments
would be protected.
"For a city like Marburg," she said, gazing toward the churches and the castle arrayed along the
hillside, which draw tourists from around the world, "that's pretty important, too."
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