Council of States wants to make it easier to build in noisy areas
Published: Thursday, Dec 7th 2023, 12:31
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The Council of States wants to relax building regulations in noisy areas. In future, it will be possible to build in areas where noise emission limits are exceeded if homes have comfort ventilation.
A building permit should also be granted in areas with non-compliant noise immission limits if at least one noise-sensitive room in each residential unit has a window that complies with the immission limits. A privately usable outdoor space must also be available where the immission limit values are complied with.
This is what the Council of States voted for on Thursday when discussing amendments to the Environmental Protection Act. The reason for the Federal Council's proposal is a Federal Supreme Court ruling which, according to statements in the Council of States, has made it much more difficult to build or convert apartments in housing estates.
Until now, measurements taken with the windows open have determined whether a home is considered to be exposed to excessive noise or not. This was stated by Daniel Fässler (center/AI), spokesman for the Council of States' preliminary consultation committee. This requirement no longer makes sense for the construction of Minergie houses.
A left-green minority failed with its motion to delete the passage on controlled ventilation in living spaces. They wanted to retain the so-called ventilation window practice of many cantons. This means that the immission limit values must be complied with at least at one window suitable for ventilation per noise-sensitive room.
Against more leeway at 50/30 km/h
This left-green minority also had no chance with a motion on requirements for building zones in which the noise planning values cannot be complied with, i.e. in which people in the apartments are threatened by too much noise. This minority proposed allowing the municipalities to take operational measures to limit immission.
What is meant is that the municipalities are given more leeway when it comes to speed limits on roads, as minority spokesperson Mathilde Crevoisier Crelier (SP/JU) explained. This left-green majority thus took up a concern of the Swiss Conference of Cities.
Prior to the debate in the Council of States, the latter had written in a press release that the fight against noise primarily requires measures at the source. A speed reduction from 50 to 30 km/h on roads would be "a great relief". However, the association welcomed the general thrust of the revision.
The Swiss Homeowners' Association (HEV Schweiz) welcomed the decision in favor of "comfort ventilation", as it announced. The Council of States has recognized the need for action when building in noisy areas in favour of densification.
The Council of States had already spoken out against a new limit value for morning aircraft noise in the Noise Abatement Ordinance on Wednesday.
Contaminated children's playgrounds must be renovated
A second key component of the Federal Council's draft revision is several changes to the handling of contaminated sites. The Council of States decided that public children's playgrounds and green spaces whose soil is contaminated with environmentally hazardous substances and where children regularly play will be subject to the obligation to clean up contaminated sites.
However, the costs for the investigation and remediation of such sites should not be borne by the owner of the site, such as municipalities, but in principle by the party causing the problems. The Council of States also did not want the cantons to be able to financially support the clean-up of private courts.
It followed the opinion of its pre-advisory committee, which said that the cantons could also protect young children by restricting the use of the locations concerned. It was a matter of giving the cantons a certain amount of leeway.
However, according to statements in the Council of States, the obligation to renovate children's playgrounds means that these renovation projects can also benefit from money from the federal government's so-called Vasa Contaminated Sites Fund.
In general, the Federal Council's aim with this part of the draft revision is to push ahead with the remediation of contaminated sites in Switzerland. The bill was clearly passed in the overall vote. It now goes to the National Council.
©Keystone/SDA
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