Resistance to container village on university property

Resistance to container village on university property

The property on Thielallee 63 in Berlin-Dahlem, which currently serves as a parking lot, is to be used by the Senate to build a container village to accommodate 260 refugees. However, this encounters resistance, especially at the Free University of Berlin (FU), since it actually wants to build a building for teaching and research on the site. The FU felt ignored by the Senate because the university management was not included in the decision. Although the university is fundamentally willing to support refugees, she emphasized that the site will be needed for its own construction projects from 2023.

The Free University proposed to use empty buildings of the Federal Real Estate Agency nearby as an alternative area for refugee accommodation. Despite the high need for renovation and extensive construction planning, the university has no other areas available. However, the special representative for refugee questions at the Senate, Broemme, is of the opinion that refugees can be accommodated on the fallow property until the new building of the FU is built.

The importance of decentralized accommodation of refugees has been emphasized because the emergency accommodations in the former airports are overloaded in the former airports. At the end of March, the Senate decided to build 16 other container villages, most of which are planned in the eastern part of the city. This exacerbates the imbalance, since certain districts such as Pankow have already accommodated many refugees. Despite the controversial discussions, the mayor emphasized that further container villages are necessary to adequately accommodate the increasing number of refugees.