3. Case study: Freiburg
3. Case study: Freiburg
Consistency of approach brings dividends for urban design and sustainability
3.1 Headlines
Location
Freiburg, Germany, Europe
Key dates
1994-present
Key features
High quality, sustainability-driven development at a range of scales, from 41-hectare brownfield site to 140-hectare greenfield urban extension
Key lessons
- Experience from Freiburg shows the importance of consistency and coherence of policies related to urban development, design and planning. This includes high standards of urban design for social spaces like play streets, green infrastructure aspects like sustainable urban drainage, and measures to manage parking and encourage public transport use.
- In order to build support for the latest urban extension in Freiburg, the City Council have embarked on a proactive and positive public engagement campaign. This included a one-day festival which mixed fun activities with information stands on planning and construction, guided tours, and politicians and officers on hand to explain and discuss proposals with local people.
- Over the more than 30-year period since the beginning of the brownfield development of Vauban in Freiburg, the City Council have maintaining the consistency of their approach and recognised the need for flexibility and pragmatism as economic circumstances have changed.
- Freiburg shows adaptability to demographic changes and an ageing population, with homes designed to be subdivided into smaller properties as residents seek to downsize.
Key recommendations
- Use design competitions, with sustainability a key criterion for success, to raise the quality of planned developments.
- Provide meaningful communication with local people, whether in relation to consultation on new schemes or to explain retrofit activities.
- Make use of community self-build initiatives to bring multiple benefits, including raising the standard of development and building support for approaches such as reducing car use in neighbourhoods.
3.2 Overview
Freiburg (full name Freiburg im Breisgau) is a small city in the state of Baden-Württemberg in the south west of Germany, close to the French and Swiss borders. With a population of around 240,000 Freiburg is only the fourth biggest city in this state, but its name has far wider recognition than other small European cities, particularly amongst planners and those interested in sustainable urban development. Freiburg has a long history of sustainability in its planning policies, developing from opposition to a nuclear power plant in the 1970s, which led to a heightened awareness of environmental issues in the city. The city today has strong policies related to reducing carbon emissions and hence car use, with a strong priority given to other modes of transport. As a result, the proportion of journeys made by car in the city has fallen from 30 percent to 16 percent. This is the context within which the city’s new districts of Vauban, Rieselfeld and Dietenbach have been developed since the 1990s[43].
3.3 Planning frameworks
The German planning system makes use of a zoning-type approach – the Federal Building Code sets out a two-tier system, with a broad plan at the municipal level accompanied by binding land-use plans for specific areas within each municipality that grant building rights. Coverage of these binding land-use plans is not comprehensive, indeed “a perhaps surprisingly large part of the built-up area of German municipalities remains ‘unplanned’”[44].
Development in Germany has in recent years become more development-led, with municipalities preferring to only go to the expense of preparing land-use plans where a developer is in place – or using land-use plans prepared by developers themselves. The new towns and other developments in Freiburg show a mixture of approaches. The lessons which can be learned from these approaches can in most cases be applied to places which do not use a zoning approach to planning based on rules, but a discretionary system based on planning judgements.
3.4 Governance structures
Vauban, within Freiburg, is an internationally recognised exemplar of sustainable development that is regularly identified as best practice in planning and other literature[45]. It was described to us as “sort of a bubble”, with a particular demographic matching its green credentials. These points, however, should not blind us to the potential for learning from Vauban, and or seeing how it is influencing the next generation of new communities in Freiburg and beyond.
Vauban is a medium-sized new district, with a population of around 5,500, and was built on a a former barracks around two miles from the city centre. The district was planned in a way which is unusual even in its context, with a working group comprised of planners working for the city, elected councillors and the public. This group made proposals which were subsequently ratified by the City Council through the formal planning process.
Strong planning and design principles emerging from this group included the retention of some of the original military housing which demonstrated the potential for re-using buildings in new ways. It also included the incorporation of lines of green space cutting through the development for cooling and ventilation. The place design was built around the proposed extension of the tram (which was installed in 2006) and had a mix of tenures. This includes a significant proportion of Baugruppen, a distinctive group-build approach which originated in Germany[46].
Rieselfeld is less well known than Vauban but originated at around the same time. It is an urban extension on the outskirts of Freiburg (c. four miles from the city centre), built on part of a former sewage infiltration area (this is the literal translation of Rieselfeld). Of the 320-hectare site of the infiltration area, around 80 hectares was built on for the urban extension. The remainder is being kept as green infrastructure. The Rieselfeld community has a population today of around 11,000, built over four phases from 1994 to 2010.
The design of Rieselfeld was the subject of a design competition, a common feature of urban development in Freiburg. The winning design led to a masterplan and in turn detailed zoning plans for each phase. Each of those detailed plans has a different overall design approach, but some common features. These include a fairly high proportion of Baugruppen (group build), and a tiered approach to building density with five to seven storeys along the central axis where the tram line is located, and which was installed before the housing was constructed. Rieselfeld was described to us as being more “normal” than Vauban, with a demographic mix closer to the average in Freiburg.
Dietenbach is a new “climate neutral” district, intended to have a population of 15-20,000, which has recently begun construction on greenfield agricultural land next to Rieselfeld. This land was purchased through a compulsory purchase approach (Städtebauliche Entwicklungsmaßname) at a negotiated price of €65 per m2. This is between the value of agricultural land (€5 to €10 per m2) and construction land (€500 to €1,000 per m2) so represents a considerable saving over a commercial land price. The legal basis for this ‘expropriation’ approach whereby government can acquire private land is set out in Sections 165-171 of the German Town and Country Planning Code, which requires that it can only be used in pursuit of the public interest[47].
The city of Freiburg is taking the lead by installing infrastructure ahead of construction and will then lay out the development and sell plots to individual developers – who will be a mix of private developers, the municipal housing company and Baugruppen self builders. The uplift in value between the initial price paid to landowners and the receipts from developed plots is used to fund the costs of infrastructure and green space which has been installed[48].
A municipal referendum was held to decide whether to go ahead with the Dietenbach development. This passed with a 60 percent majority, but in order to build more public support for the scheme, the city is running an extensive public engagement campaign, including Das Fest Für Alle[49], a six hour “festival” on the site of a forthcoming music festival. The consultation festival included cycle tours around the site and an introduction to a model of the proposals by Deputy Mayor of Freiburg, Martin Haag.
There are various other developments in Freiburg which provide further illustration of the consistent approach of the City Council. These include Weingarten, a redevelopment of four social housing blocks to retrofit to the Passivhaus standard and to adapt to the need for smaller households; and the Güterbahnhof scheme, on the former goods yard owned by Deutsche Bahn, the state-owned rail company. As Freiburg city council did not own the Güterbahnhof site, it has had less ability to impose its own preferences as seen in other schemes across the city, with a developer-led approach to development. However, design quality remains high.
3.5 Thematic discussion
New towns as sites of urban experimentation
The story of new towns/settlements in Freiburg is one of experimentation within a supportive institutional and cultural context, and of those experiments informing the next generation of new town development.
A key example is the approach to car parking management in Vauban with centralised garages and car free neighbourhoods. This was highly experimental at the time and the subject of much negotiation with the state government to reduce parking provision below usual standards[50]. The success of the parking model is partly down to residents continuing to support it. This has given confidence to Freiburg City Council that the model may be replicable. In the new (much larger) settlement of Dietenbach, a similar approach to managing cars is being planned.
Other aspects of innovation are now established as part of the mainstream approach to planning in Freiburg. These include the integration of green infrastructure throughout, and strong segregation between roads and non-car travel modes.
The significance of social and cultural lived experience
The approach to car parking management in Vauban involves the reserving of some land at the edge of the district to meet future parking requirements. This land is used as a green space in the interim and remains as such until/unless it is needed. At present, car ownership remains low so there is no immediate prospect of more parking being required. A widespread use of (electric) shared cars is an important contributory factor. These factors illustrate the importance of residents buying into the approach to more sustainable mobility.
New towns as political and ideological projects
Choices made through the planning process in the allocation of building plots to different types of developer have an (implicit or otherwise) ideological component. The system encourages Baugruppen, the community group build model which is common across Freiburg (and to a lesser extent the whole of Germany), as opposed to allowing the dominance of private sector developers. This is a conscious choice that in turn leads to other benefits.
In both Vauban and Rieselfeld there are notably higher standards of environmental design provision in Baugruppen plots, with more solar panels and green roofs. This is partly a function of the lower design and built costs. There is no marketing budget needed in this form of development. There are also economies of scale from development which brings together groups of individuals compared to individual schemes which must manage the more complicated preferences of these communities.
Functionality, adaptability, and the future of new towns
There are several important aspects to highlight regarding adaptability of the new town-style settlements in Freiburg. One is the adaptability to demographic changes and an ageing population. Homes are designed to be subdivided into smaller properties as residents seek to downsize as they become smaller households. This is facilitated by the medium density housing that is common across the new settlements. Three or four storey buildings with both shared and private green space offer choices for households to change their dwelling size.
Adaptability to climate change is also strong, with green infrastructure and sustainable urban drainage being standard features. These green infrastructure and drainage systems are being retrofitted into some open spaces and along public transport routes in the older parts of Freiburg. Rieselfeld illustrates the need to adapt to a changing financial context, as the proportion of affordable housing delivered was lower than planned for, due to changes in central funding.
Whilst Vauban has unique case study features, some of the planning and design principles which underpin it including on energy efficiency, green infrastructure, sustainable urban drainage, walkability, and car use and storage, have influenced other developments in Freiburg and beyond. Dietenbach, which is just beginning construction, has taken inspiration from the approach to car parking management, the use of Verkehrsberuhigter Bereich (play streets) and the integration of green infrastructure to help with urban cooling.
These factors all point to the adaptability of communities and the long-term success of the approaches to new town planning and development in Freiburg.
3.6 Adaptability and flexibility: Levers and barriers
Vauban is internationally recognised as an example of best practice in relation to sustainable urban development[51]. Factors leading to this recognition include strong community involvement in planning and design, integration of green infrastructure at various scales, strong public transport connectivity, a high proportion of community self-build (in the form of Baugruppen) and a grouped approach to car parking space management.
There is very little parking adjacent to housing, with most provision being in the form of district garages. Car owners in the parking space-free area which is connected to the district garages have to buy a parking space in one of the garages if they want access to parking. There is a very low car ownership of 20 per 100 residents, compared to 57 per 100 residents in Germany as a whole. While access by vehicle is possible for one-off visits, collections and drop-offs, most people use other ways to move around.
In Vauban this has become part of a self-reinforcing approach with the district being particularly popular with those who share preferences for low car ownership and other sustainable neighbourhood elements[52]. In relation to adaptability to changing demographics, some of the buildings in Vauban were designed to make it easy to subdivide homes, facilitating downsizing and other flexible uses over the longer term.
Rieselfeld was built at around the same time as Vauban, but is notably different in scale and approach. In some respects, given Vauban’s unique character, Rieselfeld provides a wider range of experiences which planners can learn from.
One example of successful design is the variable approach to building density, whilst maintaining strong public transport connectivity. There are higher density mixed-use developments closer to the tram line in Rieselfeld as compared to semi-detached homes further out. This makes most effective use of the proximity to transport by housing more people closer to services. At the same time, all homes are within easy walking distance of one of the three tram stops. Residents are also served well by community infrastructure in the form of local parks, schools, a library and multi-faith community spaces.
Rieselfeld also provides an example of the city council being forced to adapt to a changing context. The original proposal for the whole district was for 50 percent of the homes to be social housing, but due to cuts in state spending this fell to c. 20 percent, mostly concentrated into the first and second phases. Each phase has therefore adapted to changing financial circumstances. Planners are also dealing with the increasing challenges from climate change. Green infrastructure and other climate adaptations are being retrofitted in.
Freiburg City Council had particularly strong control over Rieselfeld as the land it was built on was owned by the city, in contrast to the Güterbahnhof former rail freight depot. While one of our interviewees felt the developer-led approach at Güterbahnhof had produced more of a car-dominated streetscene, the high quality of urban design visible throughout the city was also evident. Some historic buildings were retained, repurposed or integrated into new buildings in Güterbahnhof, illustrating the success of a consistent approach to urban design over a long period.