Resistance to container village: Fu Berlin wants to keep a parking lot

Resistance to container village: Fu Berlin wants to keep a parking lot

The property on Thielallee 63 in Berlin-Dahlem, which the Senate has intended for the construction of a container village for 260 refugees, encounters resistance in the deception of Kiez. Free University of Berlin is concerned because it actually wants to use the area to build teaching and research buildings. Berlin's refugee coordinator Albrecht Broemme informed the university about the plans for the accommodation of migrants, whereupon the university expressed concerns and emphasized that the area was not suitable for the accommodation of refugees.

The university management feels over the same time because it was not informed in advance. The Free University had already offered refugees unbureaucratic help in the past, but emphasized that the area was urgently needed for its own construction projects from 2023. As an Alternative, the university proposed vacant buildings in a nearby location that have already been used as accommodations in the past.

The Senate decided at the end of March the construction of 16 additional container villages in order to counter the acute lack of living space for refugees. Despite the resistance to the planned locations, Berlin's ruling mayor emphasized the urgency of the measure. Most of the new locations are planned in the eastern part of the city, which leads to a further tightening of the imbalance in the distribution of refugees in the districts.

The discussion and the resistance to the planned container village on the universe area in Steglitz-Zehlendorf have led to ridicule and lack of understanding on the net. Critics about the supposed "cosmopolitanism" of the Free University in view of the rejection of temporarily accommodating refugees in the parking lot in Thielallee 63. The debate raises the question of the extent to which certain institutions and districts are willing to take responsibility for the accommodation of refugees, especially in times when living space is scarce and emergency accommodation reach their capacity limits.