Environment Zurich City Council does not want "blooming construction sites"
The Zurich City Council thinks that greening construction sites is a bad idea. Setting up plant pots is too much effort and could endanger safety. Young people had called for "blooming construction sites" in a youth initiative.
24.07.2024, 15:15
SDA
The kind of construction site that young people in the city of Zurich would like to see is no longer recognizable as a construction site from the outside. Instead, ivy or wisteria on the scaffolding, bushes as privacy screens and vines hanging from the pipes.
At the first municipal youth conference, which took place in winter, they expressed their wish for "blooming construction sites". They had noticed that there were "extremely many" construction sites in Zurich. These often "stay in one place for a super long time".
It would be possible to set up a central "plant warehouse" from where mobile greenery could be distributed to the construction sites, according to the youth proposal.
Plant pots block the view
The city council considered the request - and recently rejected it. The "blooming construction sites" could not be sensibly implemented for several reasons.
Space on municipal construction sites is already limited. The area is kept as small as possible so that the population is not affected too much. According to the city council, there is no room for plant modules.
In addition, plant modules could endanger road safety because they would block the view. The city council also rejects the idea in terms of cost: the modules would have to be set up, moved again and again as the construction site progressed and watered regularly.
Watering every two days
Watering would probably be carried out by vehicles with water tanks, which would then have to drive through the city every two days in summer. It is therefore questionable whether "flourishing construction sites" would have a positive effect on the CO2 balance. After the city council, parliament will also deal with the youth proposal.
Around 100 young people took part in the city's first youth conference on November 24, 2023. They formulated seven youth proposals that they want to submit to the municipal council and city council. The other motions are about cheaper public transport tickets for young people, open gyms and a reporting office for cases of discrimination.
