Retail and centre concept adopted

Yesterday, Chemnitz City Council approved the retail and centre concept for the city of Chemnitz. This updates the concept from 2011. The key objectives of future retail development in the city of Chemnitz are defined in the current update of the retail concept:

• The strengthening and further development of the city centre
• Safeguarding the defined central supply areas
• Securing and improving the basic supply of everyday goods close to residential areas

To implement the centre concept, spatially defined A, C and D centres (central supply areas) are confirmed as investment priority areas for the retail trade and as worthy of protection in terms of urban development. They are to be preserved and developed. In addition, so-called privileged local supply locations are confirmed as locations to be safeguarded for local basic supply.

The retail and centre concept is based on the following strategic development goals:

• The positioning of the city centre as a supporting retail location through the concentration of higher-quality, less transport-sensitive offers. The focus here should be on so-called 'pleasure shopping'. The proportion of centre-relevant product ranges should be secured and further expanded. The aim is to maintain a minimum number of large-scale and powerful magnet businesses and to further develop the city centre as the most attractive retail location in the region - both in terms of retail and urban development.
  
• The C-centres (including Ermafa-Passage and Gablenz-Center) are to be further developed as district centres with a wide range of functions and should provide a concentrated range of retail uses (local supply and centre-relevant) and supplementary uses. The district centres are to be seen as complementary locations to the city centre offering close to residential areas.
  
• The D-centres (e.g. Rabenstein-Center, Wolgo-Passage or at the old airport/Usti nad Labem street) should be primarily geared as local supply centres towards ensuring a functioning local supply of everyday goods. In addition to retail functions, a minimum number of complementary uses should also be provided in the sense of a centre. Centre-relevant product ranges should only be offered in the form of complementary small areas.
  
• Some existing food markets are identified as privileged local supply locations. They do not represent central supply areas within the meaning of the BauGB. However, they fulfil an important function in securing basic supplies close to home and are located in areas integrated into the settlement. These are mostly solitary grocery shops. Supplementary functions and centre-relevant retail are not planned at these locations.
  
• The mainly car-oriented shopping centres (e.g. Chemnitz-Center and Neefepark) and larger retail agglomerations are to be treated as centrality-forming special locations. The focus of these special locations should correspond more to "last-minute shopping" in the sense of supply shopping. This means that the profile here should in future be more strongly oriented towards purely supply-oriented shopping for typical 'car boot ranges' and thus concentrate on a specialist market-oriented profile that is based on a division of labour with the city centre. The further development of special locations for centre-relevant and local supply needs should be prevented at all costs so as not to impair the development prospects of the centres and the city centre in particular. The existing scope of centre-relevant offerings is secured by the protection of existing businesses.
  
• In order to improve the basic supply close to home, the concept includes "search areas" in which the establishment of a new local shopping centre outside the central supply areas would be welcome.

The aim of the concept is to allow as few exceptions as possible and thus offer certainty for the coming years. It should offer planning and investment security and enable and support corresponding decisions in a transparent and comparable manner for administration, politics and, last but not least, companies/investors.