Many people remembered that the architect repeatedly and at great length emphasized that the project was within the planned budget. At the inauguration, there was still talk of a slight overrun of four percent, which would be fully borne by the church community. Now the question for the municipal council was whether, and if so how much, the municipality should contribute to this shortfall.
One point in particular of the detailed list of cost overruns sparked a lively discussion at the meeting on monday evening: all members of the committee reacted unanimously with disagreement to the increase in planning costs of around 35,000 euros.
"Not solidly calculated"
A selection of the consistently critical comments: "the architect has always justified the high level of the overall inspection by saying that, in the the manufacturer was also convinced that the planning of the individual crafts was extremely high-priced in order to avoid additional costs from the outset. I now have to conclude: the calculations were not sound" (mark standner, CSU/NWG); "the reasons given by the architect for the additional planning costs are quite brazen" (friedrich weinlein, WB); "until the inauguration, one heard from the architect: we are in the green area. For me, the additional costs are due to planning errors" (emil lauterbach, CSU/NWG); "the increase in planning costs were raised in the finance committee by everyone. We can't support that (second mayor albert kolb, SPD/WG).
At least with regard to the additional costs in the construction area, the architect received support from helmut kufner (SPD/WG): "we have got into a boom phase with the tenders. The order books of the companies were full, and the offers were correspondingly high."
The head of the administrative community, karin holzbecher, pointed out on request that no subsidies are to be expected for the additional costs: "the maximum requirement for this has already been exhausted."
The same is true of the church congregation. "We have to and we can live with the situation", the building owner, pastor peter ahrens, sees it realistically. He, too, has to see how he can cope with the additional costs. "The grant we received from the regional church was capped. We can expect nothing more. We will talk to the church board about possibly taking out a small loan under the current favorable conditions."
In the end, the council followed the recommendation of the finance committee to cover half of the purely structural part of the deficit, i.E. 35,000 euros, against the vote of mark standner.