Living center nuclei: SPD proposes to use empty churches!
Living center nuclei: SPD proposes to use empty churches!
Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland - In Baden-Württemberg, an increasing turning away from the church can be observed. In 2023, around 63,800 people from the Catholic Church escaped, while around 54,000 withdrawals from the Evangelical Church were recorded. This development means that many churches are no longer needed and thus also spaces for lingering and losing life. Against this background, the SPD Baden-Württemberg proposes to convert empty churches in social housing in order to promote the social living space and at the same time to revitalize the local nuclei in smaller municipalities. The planned apartments should be barrier -free and affordable in order to accommodate older people in particular.
With this approach, the SPD pursues the goal of preventing sales negotiations to private investors. Instead, you want the state government to act as an intermediary between the churches and the municipalities. In this way, former church rooms could also be used as meeting places or community cafes. This could create both social living space and strengthen the community.challenges of conversion
One of the challenges in the conversion of churches is monument protection. Many of the approximately 1,500 church buildings in Baden-Württemberg fall under this protection. According to the Evangelical Church of Baden, this is a hurdle for conversion and selling the buildings, which must be overcome. Nevertheless, there are already examples in Europe that are inspiring. In Spain, a former church in Llanera was converted into an indoor skate park, while in Maastricht the Dominican church is now used as a bookshop in which a café is also housed.
In the Skate Church of Llanera, which is more than 110 years old, creative umnutilg took place after years of vacancy, which was supported by crowdfunding. The plaza in the former Dominican church in Maastricht shows how old churches can become places of encounter and cultural interaction.
The SPD initiative in Baden-Württemberg could not only contribute to the creation of living space, but also help to preserve the cultural and social function of the buildings. In order to support these important changes, suitable measures and the courage to implement are required.
The decline in church members and the need to convert church buildings are not only local, but also social challenges that require new thinking. It remains to be seen how the state government reacts to the SPD's proposals and whether it takes the chance to transform these empty places into valuable social spaces.
Further information can be found in the report of SWR href = "https://www.denkmalschutz.de/presse/archiv/artikel/ein-manifest-zur-beilungen-der-kirchenbauten-als--community"> Monument protection and WDR .
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| Ort | Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland |
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