Company withdraws its application to build asylum-seeker centre

It was back in 2015 that the canton gave its initial consent to the Hotz Obermühle AG company to provide accommodation for up to 100 asylum-seekers in Baar. Now the company has withdrawn its application.

The issue relating to the building of this temporary centre has been surrounded by controversy since it was first mooted, not least because of its container-style construction and central location on Langgasse.

One of the reasons Roman Hotz of the afore-mentioned company withdrew from the project was because it is now almost five years since he made his offer to help alleviate the problem in accommodating asylum-seekers, an initial plan drawn up lasting until 2020 and another, of as yet unspecified use, until 2025, the plans repeatedly put on hold as a result of objections raised. However, he also wanted to make it clear that the abandonment of his plans for asylum-seeker accommodation was not as a result of locals protesting. “I realised from the outset that any project such as this would have met with complaints,” he said.

In particular, the SVP party have done their best to prevent the project going ahead.

In a statement relating to the company’s decision, Andreas Hostettler, who is head of the Department of Inner-Cantonal Affairs and as such responsible for asylum-seeker matters, said the canton still needed space where asylum-seekers could live, adding how some 1,200 refugees were currently having to be housed here, with a further 140 expected to be allocated to Zug, as they are by the state authorities.

Individual municipalities are then themselves expected to house a proportionate number. Hostettler went on to say he was confident alternative accommodation would be found in the municipality.

Disturbed about a shortfall in the provision of accommodation for asylum-seekers, the leader of the Alternative Green Party, Andreas Lustenberger, immediately tabled questions to the cantonal government on this pressing issue, Hostettler mentioning how, with no such accommodation forthcoming on this Langgasse site, there was even greater urgency it was found elsewhere in the canton.