Ideas competition "Hechtsheimer Höhe residential district"
The state capital of Mainz is one of Germany's fastest-growing cities and, as a major university and media hub, attracts many students and young professionals.
This appeal is causing high demand for housing. The potential for redensification of existing buildings, activation of vacant buildings, and conversion of disused military or brownfield sites in the Mainz urban area will not be sufficient to meet this high demand for housing in the medium term.
Therefore, the state capital of Mainz must strive to generate additional new residential building land beyond the aforementioned inner-city land potential. For this reason, land that has not yet been explicitly designated as settlement expansion areas in the land use plan is also becoming the focus of planning.
These areas include a site in the Mainz-Hechtsheim district on the eastern edge of the "Großberghöhe" residential area, which was not used for development in the course of the "Großberghöhe (1976/1977)" competition. The reason for this was compliance with the required blast protection distance to the "Portland Zementwerke" quarry in "Laubenheim."
This restriction on construction development at that time no longer applies now that limestone quarrying in the quarry has ceased. The area is therefore available for urban development that makes sense in terms of consolidating the settlement with residential building land and was included in the city model "The city is growing: living space for Mainz" published in 2015.