By Stefan Peter
Has Lichtenberg’s district mayor Martin Schaefer (48, CDU) made a mistake? The politician announced the evacuation of the illegal trailer park in Karlshorst for Monday – now the majority of the district parliament has voted against it.
The trailer park is a collection of containers and caravans on Hönower Wiesenweg in Karlshorst. A good 200 people are said to live there, but no one has an exact overview. For years there have been repeated problems about hygiene and waste disposal. The power supply is currently switched off – so there is no heating or hot water.
At Schaefer’s urging, the district office decided to ban use and ordered the evacuation on Monday. But there was resistance to the eviction in the district assembly (BVV) on Thursday. At the request of the Left, SPD and Greens, it was decided that there should be an “orderly emptying” of the trailer park by May.
Until then, the owner of the site must provide a power connection. The current residents should be provided with living space and allowed to take their pets with them – if they are evicted, the residents would be accommodated in the Paul-Gesche-Straße homeless shelter without their animals.
Criticism of the planned evacuation also comes from the exempt construction councilor Kevin Hönicke (39, SPD): “I, as the actually responsible district councilor, find Mr. Schaefer’s actions really questionable and it contradicts all my efforts over the last few months.”
Does the mayor bow to the BVV decision? When asked by the BZ, the town hall only said evasively: “The offer of accommodation from the district office remains in place, the shuttle bus will be provided. The district office will only comment on any further detailed questions once the responsible working group has consulted with the specialist offices involved.”
Antonio Leonhardt (29, left): “We think the evacuation is hasty and poorly prepared. If the mayor fails to guarantee decent accommodation for all residents, we will submit a motion of disapproval.”