Alsfeld scheduled!Framework plan for the redevelopment of the old town completed

Redevelopment of historic town centers was under discussion everywhere in the Federal Republic in the 1960s. For Alsfeld, which had already been included in the “Promotion Program for Central Places” in 1959, the year 1962 can be considered the starting point. With their diploma thesis at the University of Bonn on “Preliminary Studies for a Redevelopment Plan for the City of Alsfeld,” M. Kohlenberg and J. Martell created the first documents.

Further decisive steps followed in the same year with the “Explanatory Report on the Land Use Plan of the District Town of Alsfeld” by E. Gassner and G. Lammers, and in 1963 with the adoption of a new local building bylaw. The first planning contract for the redevelopment went to the Cologne architect G. Gonsior in 1964. The overall concept was then completed in 1967.

The year before, the city received the award “Citizens, it’s about your community” in a nationwide competition for exemplary urban land use planning.

The main objectives for the old town redevelopment were:

• Preservation of the old town as a shopping and business center
• Modernization of the housing stock and creation of leisure and green areas
• Keeping the center largely free of automobile traffic
• Establishment of pedestrian zones
• Preservation of the system, element and structure of the medieval old town, essentially through facade renovation

NH