The controversial construction project in Grafenwörth (Tulln district), where the chairman of the Association of Municipalities, Alfred Riedl, is mayor, continues to cause a stir. Against the background of dubious real estate sales, the ÖVP politician has recently been criticized. The District Authority (BH) Tulln has now launched a supervisory inquiry procedure. The time horizon for its end is still open, it said. Riedl himself denies the allegations.
The stumbling block is the project “Sonnenweiher Grafenwörth”. With more than 200 single-family homes, semi-detached houses and terraced houses, as well as small lake houses, it is being built around a 36,000 square meter foil lake in the Weinviertel. There’s no doubt about taste, but the sustainability and environmental aspects of the project left experts everywhere shaking their heads. As the “Krone” and the “Profiel” already reported in 2021, Riedl would also have acquired two plots of land in the grassland on the outskirts of Grafenwörth and would later have bought two adjacent fields as the property developer’s trustee.
Riedl would have made good money from the sale
Nine buildings for the project were eventually repurposed as building land by decision of the city council. Riedl would have earned about a million euros from the sale of the affected properties. That Riedl was on the supervisory board of Niederösterreichische Versicherung was brought up by the NEOS. With 74 percent, the company is the majority shareholder of the developer VI-Engineers Bauträger GmbH & Co KG. Criticism of the deal’s optics has also been received recently from the Federal Greens and through the Ö1 “Morgenjournal” from community representatives from several states.
The regulator is now investigating the project
While the planning department of the state of Lower Austria had originally approved the project, as also reported by the ORF, the BH Tulln now initiated a control procedure in accordance with Section 85 of the Lower Austria Municipal Act. “The deadline for the municipality to supply the relevant documents is four weeks. After the city council minutes, resolutions, etc. have been submitted, it is examined whether the resolutions have been passed in accordance with § 92 of the Lower Austrian Municipal Law,” Deputy District Governor Renate Giller-Schilk stressed in a statement sent to APA. It was not clear until when the results would be known “The period of the review depends, among other things, on the scope of the documents submitted,” it said.
Riedl himself always rejected the allegations that had already become known in 2021 and said, among other things, that part of the property had been owned by the family for decades. The president of the Association of Municipalities made a similar statement accompanying the APA request. “I am not aware of any guilt,” Riedl stressed. All points related to the project were “transparently processed”. With regard to the current working method of the BH, it was emphasized that everything could be checked.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
