With the "OB vor Ort" format, Mayor Schwenke and his team want to find out "where the shoe pinches". The event for the Senefelderquartier, Musikerviertel and Buchrain districts on Thursday, May 12, 2022 was attended by around 70 citizens in the Leibnizschule auditorium despite the summer barbecue weather.
Before addressing the individual topics, Schwenke explained the city's current situation to those present and outlined its strategic lines. The fact that the once prosperous municipality lost jobs in the 1990s and is still in dire straits is well known, but many people are not aware of it: "Offenbach is unfortunately a poor city and while other Hessian municipalities such as Kassel have one euro of income from trade tax, we only have 77 cents. Or just 24 cents compared to Frankfurt."
Schwenke and his team are therefore focusing on a strong economic policy, taking care of the local companies as well as marketing the location in the region and beyond. The master plan has also set an important course for the future, positioning the city as an attractive location in the heart of the region. This includes the development of the former Alessa site into an innovation campus. The transformation is to succeed in small steps, and real successes have already been reported in the past year with the establishment of Samson AG and, more recently, the Hesse champion Biospring. Samson brings more than 2,000 employees to Kettelerstrasse in Offenbach and is considered the largest settlement in the post-war period. "We need a good municipal economic policy in order to become a financially reasonably balanced city," explains Schwenke.
Urban development is a matter for the boss
To ensure that developers and investors can plan and realize their projects quickly, the mayor has made urban development a top priority and invites people to an internal building approval meeting every 14 days. The expansion of fiber optics is progressing at a corresponding pace, traffic is increasingly being controlled digitally in real time and work is being done on expanding the cycling network. Schwenke also has his eye on housing construction: "Housing is scarce and we won't be able to prevent rent increases," says the mayor, "but we have stabilized the number of publicly subsidized apartments at the GBO for 10 years and given all seven plots still owned by the city to the GBO for multi-storey apartment construction."
There is also a lot going on in the city center. For almost a year now, the weather and climate workshop in the town hall plaza has been another exciting address in the home town of the German Weather Service and the weather park. Furthermore, the temporary use of the rooms of the former BB-Bank at Stadthof by students of the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) led by Professor Heiner Blum currently attracts many curious visitors to the city from Thursdays to Sundays.
Festivals and events are also planned, including a beach club on Aliceplatz, as well as a green ribbon in the direction of Hugenottenplatz. "With the development of the city center future concept, an important process for the contemporary conversion of the city center has been initiated. More and more purchases are being made online, and we and local retailers must respond to this with appropriate offers."
Citizens ask
The "OB vor Ort" series serves as an opportunity to discuss what problems there are and how they can be solved. Schwenke therefore brought along Anja Georgi, Managing Director of NIO (local transport in Offenbach), Jan Schmidbauer from the Road Traffic Department, Peter Weigand, Head of the Public Order Office, Christian Loose, Deputy Operations Manager of ESO, Christian Broos from the Stabsstelle Sauberes Offenbach and Marcus Schenk from Quartiersmanagement Senefelder Quartier. Together, they answered all questions relating to traffic, cleanliness and safety.
Schwenke explained that there have already been several initiatives to improve the situation on the parking deck at Rolandpassage. The parking deck is a meeting place for young people and there is also talk of drug dealing. "The city is trying everything it can here," says Schwenke. It's far more than nothing, but in order to be successful, they need the cooperation of the owner as well as the cooperation of the state police. Neighborhood manager Schenk reports that "the state police carry out checks there and we have tried on behalf of the city to offer the young people activities so that they can spend their free time in a more meaningful way". The city is currently trying to persuade the owner to convert the upper floor into apartments so that more vitality and social control can be brought to the top floor.
Jan Schmidbauer explained why thresholds are not being built to reduce speed: "People often ignore the fact that they really do cause noise in front of the building in question and make a plop-plop sound every time they cross." But checks and additional information, as requested by residents in Buchrainweg, Hergenröterstraße and Blumenstraße, are possible, added Weigand. It should also be checked whether there are still enough information signs for the "play street" area. These have recently been used successfully in Hafen and Nordend, reminding drivers of walking speed and children playing. The fact that the area south of the Odenwaldring is used as a shortcut to Frankfurt ("Im Teller" housing estate) when there is a traffic jam on the A661 can hardly be prevented. However, the public order office also wants to carry out further checks there.
"The planned 9-euro ticket might convince some people and should be used as an opportunity," said one resident. The fact that this requires not only attractive offers, but also corresponding use, is shown by the adjustment of local transport services, which was also briefly discussed that evening. While a municipal subsidy of 5.6 million euros was still sufficient for public transport in 2017, the subsidy rose to 6.5 million euros in the following years. Within a very short space of time, the subsidy then doubled to 13 million euros and the city council now wants to keep it constant for at least some time in order to limit the rapid rise in costs. The impact of the cost cap on public transport services has been the subject of public debate in recent weeks. NIO boss Anja Georgi also patiently explained detailed questions on this evening.