There will be no new zones for the time being

There is no other traffic planning topic in Hamburg that is currently the subject of such bitter debate as the designation of more and more residential parking areas. The SPD and the Greens had agreed on a minimum of 20 new areas in their coalition agreement in 2020. There are 43 additional zones so far - and the legislature runs for two more years. If the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce has its way, new areas in the Hanseatic city will be over for the time being. The Chamber of Commerce had also joined the demands

Before the road traffic regulations were changed and tradesmen received parking permits more easily, "no further resident parking areas should be identified," according to a list of demands published by the Chamber of Commerce on Thursday. Transport Senator Anjes Tjarks (Greens) announced in the late afternoon that he would be willing to talk and does not want to set up any new zones until the end of the negotiations with the economy.

"We see a number of good starting points in the Chamber of Commerce paper," said Tjarks. The paper "deserves that we deal with it intensively and come to good solutions together in the discussion process with the chambers and other parties involved". He will invite those involved to talks. "In order not to anticipate the results, we will put new resident parking areas on hold for the time being."

The road traffic regulations stipulate that only residents are entitled to a parking permit in the areas. With this you can park without time restrictions and without parking fees on the streets of your resident parking zone. Companies can obtain special permits for vehicles required for operations. Company employees, for example, are not entitled to a parking permit - and what vehicles are required for operation is decided on a case-by-case basis.

According to the criticism of the Chamber of Commerce, the regulations for this are not very transparent or are not applied consistently. Another shortcoming: Even for rejected applications, the full rate for an exemption of 250 euros is currently due.

According to the chamber, around 66,800 companies and thus 39 percent of all companies belonging to the chamber of commerce have their headquarters in the areas with established or planned resident parking zones. "We have to develop resident parking into 'resident parking'," said Chamber of Commerce President Norbert Aust. Then companies, some of which have been rooted in the districts for decades, would no longer be excluded and could park their vehicles under the same conditions as residents.

The traffic authority announced weeks ago that it would also make special quotas of special permits available to companies so that they could issue them to employees working the early shifts. The federal government also wants to campaign for changes to the road traffic regulations. And the fees for rejected permits should also be discussed again. But that is not enough, or the Chamber of Commerce argues that it is still too far away. On Thursday, Tjarks also referred to the changes already initiated by his authority.

Confrontational politics was not the 41-year-old's political style even during his time as parliamentary group leader. Experts therefore see the concession as an attempt to settle the long-simmering dispute once and for all. This also includes Tjarks emphasizing that functioning commercial traffic is important for the city. The chambers had also pushed for this political commitment.