The municipalities are demanding more financial support from the federal government for heat planning. “According to our calculations, the 500 million euros provided by the federal government so far are by no means sufficient,” said the general manager of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, Gerd Landsberg, to the editorial network Germany. This sum was called by the Ministry of Construction. The money should come from the climate and transformation fund. The federal cabinet may make a decision on municipal heat planning this Wednesday.
Landsberg said that the heat transition with significantly less CO2 emissions in the building sector would fail without the municipalities. In order for it to be successful across the board, not only would all municipalities have to be involved, regardless of their size, but heat planning would also have to be affordable. “We have serious doubts about this,” said the head of the association. “Because the municipalities are confronted with limited capacities, both in their own administration and in the external planning offices.” Deadlines that can be met are necessary. “The requirements for the heating plans must not be too bureaucratic either,” says Landsberg.
Even the German Association of Cities is not yet satisfied with the planned funding. “It is important that we can now quickly get started with further heat planning. We then have to talk about money – because the cities will not be able to handle the heat transition alone,” said general manager Helmut Dedy to the newspapers of the Funke media group. A survey conducted by the City Day showed that the cities reckoned with expenses of around 200,000 euros each plus personnel costs just for the preparation of this heating plan. “So that would be extrapolated to up to two billion euros for heat plans in all German municipalities. Nothing has been implemented yet,” he added. 500 million euros from the federal government were not enough “back there and up front”.
The Association of Towns and Municipalities represents around 11,000 municipalities with 17 member associations. The City Day takes care of the interests of all cities that are not part of a district and most of those that belong to a district.
