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Switzerland

New Green Housing Developments In Switzerland: Car Owners Need Not Apply

Politicians in Zurich are debating whether rental agreements can forbid tenants to own a car. But in Bern, the Swiss capital, some 80 people have already signed such contracts.

Public transportation in Zurich (andynash)
Public transportation in Zurich (andynash)


*NEWSBITES

ZURICHMany landlords make a point of keeping their properties pet, or maybe smoke-free. But in Switzerland, some new apartment blocks demand that tenants also be car-free.

The issue is currently a subject of debate among politicians in Zurich, where many poeple vigorously oppose the idea. Tages-Anzeiger readers have been battling it out online with hundreds of comments. In the meantime, however, construction has already begun in and around the city on several car-free housing developments where residents will voluntarily -- or not entirely voluntarily -- get along without the comforts of a car.

In the Swiss capital of Bern, a development finished a year ago in the Bümpliz district has 80 tenants, all of whom signed rental contracts agreeing not to keep "individual motorized means of transportation" where they live.

Resident Katharina Gallizzi told a German TV interviewer that she wasn't "giving up" anything. On the contrary: "Not having a car represents a very high standard of living," she said. Commuting on public transportation gives her time to read. Plus she doesn't have the stress of getting caught in traffic jams. For Gallizzi, the environmental implications are also important: "Doing something together for the environment brings people together; it's a nice experience."

One of the developers, Günther Ketterer, said he didn't see himself as anti-car and that if somebody needed to drive for some reason or another they could join a mobility scheme.

In Zurich hundreds of tenants will be moving into car-free developments in the next few years. A 250-unit facility called the Kalkbreite development, for example, is already under construction and is set to open in the spring of 2014.

A second Zurich development scheduled for completion in 2016, with 94 apartments, is in the planning stages and may well be built without parking space. In Leutschenbach, also in Zurich, another development of 450 apartments is going up with reduced parking possibilities – only 106 spaces will be built. In another development, local authorities actually opposed the developers' plans for 131 parking spaces, and authorized only 66.

Read the full story in German by Simon Eppenberger

Photo – andynash

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

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Economy

Lex Tusk? How Poland’s Controversial "Russian Influence" Law Will Subvert Democracy

The new “lex Tusk” includes language about companies and their management. But is this likely to be a fair investigation into breaking sanctions on Russia, or a political witch-hunt in the business sphere?

Photo of President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Polish President Andrzej Duda

Piotr Miaczynski, Leszek Kostrzewski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Poland’s new Commission for investigating Russian influence, which President Andrzej Duda signed into law on Monday, will be able to summon representatives of any company for inquiry. It has sparked a major controversy in Polish politics, as political opponents of the government warn that the Commission has been given near absolute power to investigate and punish any citizen, business or organization.

And opposition politicians are expected to be high on the list of would-be suspects, starting with Donald Tusk, who is challenging the ruling PiS government to return to the presidency next fall. For that reason, it has been sardonically dubbed: Lex Tusk.

University of Warsaw law professor Michal Romanowski notes that the interests of any firm can be considered favorable to Russia. “These are instruments which the likes of Putin and Orban would not be ashamed of," Romanowski said.

The law on the Commission for examining Russian influences has "atomic" prerogatives sewn into it. Nine members of the Commission with the rank of secretary of state will be able to summon virtually anyone, with the powers of severe punishment.

Under the new law, these Commissioners will become arbiters of nearly absolute power, and will be able to use the resources of nearly any organ of the state, including the secret services, in order to demand access to every available document. They will be able to prosecute people for acts which were not prohibited at the time they were committed.

Their prerogatives are broader than that of the President or the Prime Minister, wider than those of any court. And there is virtually no oversight over their actions.

Nobody can feel safe. This includes companies, their management, lawyers, journalists, and trade unionists.

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