Municipal heating planning up to 2028 should also apply to small towns and villages. In view of the lower planning capacities, the Association of Towns and Municipalities is now demanding a little more leeway for small municipalities.
The Association of Towns and Municipalities has spoken out in favor of extending the deadlines for heat planning in small municipalities to 2030. “Municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants have a deadline until the end of 2027. In this respect, it is conceivable to consider further staggered deadlines for smaller municipalities,” said association expert Marianna Roscher to the newspapers of the Bayern media group. “This could, for example, come in the form of a low-threshold commitment by 2030.” In addition, extension and hardship clauses should be considered for all deadlines.
According to the Federal Building Minister Klara Geywitz, municipal heat planning up to 2028 should also apply to small towns and villages. The SPD politician recently announced in the Bundestag that the original threshold of 10,000 inhabitants is to fall. However, Geywitz added that one cannot apply the same legal requirements to municipalities in rural areas with little planning capacity as to the large municipalities.
The heat planning should show what options there are for district heating, for example. This should bring more options for switching to more climate-friendly heating systems. Citizens can then see whether their house could soon be connected to a heating network or whether they should rely on a heat pump on their own property. The leaders of the traffic light coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP had agreed to couple the controversial building energy law with the heat planning law and to have both come into force on January 1, 2024. In some municipalities there are already heat plans.
Source: Stern
