Anything but grey: »Linz is underestimated«

Planning Councilor Dietmar Prammer (SP) is convinced that the accusation that Linz is a gray city is not true. “It is always underestimated how green Linz really is.”

52 percent of the nearly ten-hectare urban area is dedicated to grassland, eight percent is traffic areas, and 40 percent is building land. Bodies of water are not considered separately in these statistics. Compared to other provincial capitals, Linz has the edge here, Graz, for example, only has around 44 percent grassland, says Prammer. It should also not be forgotten that not every dedicated building site is automatically sealed.

The north and south of Linz are particularly “green”; the inner city, Bulgariplatz and the Franckviertel have the smallest proportion of grassland.

“We also want to preserve this green treasure,” says Prammer. But it is clear that in a city like Linz there will “always be rededications”. Such decisions are always a balancing of interests, each case is examined “sensitively” and taking urban climatological analyzes into account. However, Prammer warns against black-and-white thinking that the climate results should not become a “killer argument” for every project.

Despite a slight decline, the demand for non-profit housing in the city is still high. It makes sense to create new living space in the urban environment for a number of reasons, says Prammer, citing the existing social infrastructure as an example.

Freinberg as the largest park

The urban planning officer also emphasized the importance of the municipal parks as important local recreation areas. The largest of these is the Freinberg with an area of ​​26.96 hectares, followed by the Bauernberg Park (13.9 hectares) and the park at the university (9.99 hectares). The Donaupark comes in fourth with 9.8 hectares.

The number of parking spaces is always increasing, it is said – with the one in Mengerstraße another one is to follow. As is well known, the project (which required a rededication) is controversial – not least because of the agreement reached between the Breuerhof private foundation as the property owner and the city of Linz. Even before the municipal council voted, this stipulated that if half of the property were to be rededicated, the other half would be owned by the city in order to create a public park. And that’s how it finally happened, the design advisory board already gave the go-ahead for the project.