Without a public tender, the municipality of Schildorn sold a fully developed building site in the city center to a municipality of ÖVP for 94,800 euros. This announced the construction of affordable housing. Half a year later, however, he sold the area for 237,000 euros to the WSG.
For Rieder FPÖ district manager Erhard Weinzinger, the real estate deal in Schildorn is “immoral”. According to a report in the Wiener Zeitung, the community, led by ÖVP mayor Wolfgang Moser, unanimously decided in April 2022 to sell a community property in the city center. Buyer: ÖVP parliamentary group leader Gerald Schauer-Weiß. Purchase price: 94,800 euros for a 1,580 square meter plot of land intended for building purposes and connected to the sewage, water and electricity networks.
Houses should have been built this year
Schauer-Weiß stated that he wanted to build ten terraced houses on the newly acquired plot and two adjacent plots of land, which he had bought from private individuals in March 2022 – also for 60 euros per square meter. Affordable housing was discussed. The houses should be ready by the end of 2024.
150 instead of 60 euros per square meter
But there is no trace of that at the moment. It turns out that the meadow has been resold. Price: 237,000 euros, or 150 euros per square meter. The non-profit Residential and Settlement Community (WSG) won the bid. They paid Schauer-Weiß a total of 428,850 euros for all three spaces, for a total of 2,859 square meters.
Politicians don’t want to know anything about enrichment
According to the newspaper report, Gerald Schauer-Weiß does not see himself as an intermediary and has not enriched himself. He wanted to set up his own company together with MKAW Immobilien to develop the project. He had reports drawn up, developed a concept together with the community and had plans drawn up. All this was a lot of work and cost money. In the end, he sold the property to the WSG because they wanted to take over his concept. The WSG paid not only for the meadow, but also for the idea, the plans and the preparatory work, that is how he explains his profit. ‘I didn’t have much left,’ he says.
Plans slightly adjusted
The WSG confirms that it has only “slightly modified” the plans. The property was offered to it by an estate agent, according to a statement to the WZ. “We had no information about the events prior to our purchase.” The WSG did not know that the property had not been sold a few months earlier.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
