Green-red coalition agreement: Kassel wants fewer cars, parking spaces and firecrackers

With the signing of the coalition agreement in Kassel’s town hall, the situation is reversed: The Greens are the strongest force, the SPD has to get used to the new status of junior partner. The “green topics” are also dominant in terms of content.

When the coalition agreement was signed in Kassel’s town hall on Thursday there was a lively atmosphere. For years the Greens and the SPD have been part of a city government. You know each other, you value each other. Corona-related, completely digital negotiations took place in a correspondingly harmonious manner, emphasized the Kassel Greens chairman Vanessa Gronemann.

Some things are different in the long-standing SPD stronghold than in previous years: “Green-red” instead of “red-green” is written on the cover of the 50-page long contract. The Greens, who emerged as the strongest force in the local elections in March, also have the first word at the press conference. The SPD, however, has to be content with the unfamiliar role of junior partner.

The city should be green

In addition to the new play of colors and rankings, Greens boss Gronemann immediately set the direction in terms of content: Kassel should become climate-neutral by 2030, is the stipulation. This is how climate policy made it into the guideline of the new coalition agreement.

For the citizens of Kassel, the reconstruction of the city will have to lead to a rethink in the coming years: Kassel should – unlike at present – become a “cycling city”. The coalition will have to remove building sins from the time when the car was king of the city. On the wide Wilhelmshöher Allee, for example, besides space for tin caravans and trams, bicycles were completely forgotten.

Fewer burners, fewer stones, fewer firecrackers

According to the coalition agreement, friends of gravel and rock gardens should also be brought to more nature in the front yard with a “green statute”. The internal combustion engine should give way as possible; some quarters should in “suitable cases” no longer be passable for petrol and diesel cars – exceptions should apply to people with disabilities and, upon request, to delivery traffic and residents.

Parking spaces should be reduced in the long term and used differently. And the firecrackers on New Year’s Eve could also get on the collar: The coalition wants to “exhaust the legal possibilities to reduce private New Year’s Eve fireworks in Kassel,” says the green-red government paper. Instead, laser shows without fine dust clouds should be advertised.

Not everyone will be enthusiastic about this. One wants to counter possible resistance in the population with dialogue offers, said Gronemann. The Greens hope that interest in green issues and climate change will continue even after the first parking spaces disappear.

Every fourth child lives in poverty

In the areas of construction, business and the energy sector, ecological thinking should also be considered in the future. Kassel has had a climate protection council for a long time, in which experts from science, climate activism and business work out proposals on how Kassel should achieve the 1.5 degree target in the next two decades.

Whether all of this succeeds will now depend on politics – if there is any doubt, readjustments must be made: “We are keeping the goal in mind and adapting our measures,” promised Gronemann on Thursday.

The SPD emphasized that the coalition would tackle many social issues. One of the central points in the coalition agreement is the fight against poverty among children, families and the elderly. And there is a lot to do there: every fourth child in Kassel lives in poverty, more than in any other Hessian city.