The municipal council narrowly rejected a loan of CHF 1.2 billion. The Alternative List and Green Dissenters tipped the scales.
The Üetlihof is for sale. It should cost well over a billion francs.
The city of Zurich will not participate in one of the largest real estate deals in recent years. The city parliament narrowly rejected a loan for the purchase of the Üetlihof on Wednesday evening, with 61 no to 57 yes votes. The site belongs to the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, and there are offices for the major bank Credit Suisse, with a total of around 8,500 jobs.
The city parliament was faced with the question of whether it should approve a supplementary loan of CHF 1.2 billion. A yes would have meant that the city council could have submitted a bid in a bidding round for the huge office complex. The city council could have determined the amount of the Zurich bid independently.
The city government regarded the Üetlihof as a strategic land reserve. It is the second largest contiguous parcel in the residential area of the city of Zurich, she wrote in her template. She saw several possible uses for the site. Either offices like today or up to 1000 apartments in the future, plus urban buildings like school buildings. However, the city government did not have concrete building plans for the Üetlihof. It is up to future generations to decide what to do with the site.
Center voted with the Left, AL with the Conservatives
Opinions in Parliament on the Üetlihof loan did not exactly follow left-right lines. The GLP, which often agrees with the SP and the Greens in other shops, spoke out against the purchase with the FDP and the SVP. The center, on the other hand, was in favor of the loan together with the SP and parts of the Greens.
The Greens and the Alternative List also played a decisive role – the small left-wing party (8 members) was united against the purchase, the Greens were divided. Only because of these votes was a No majority possible. The FDP, the SVP and the GLP could not have prevented the loan on their own.
One of the green opponents was Markus Knauss. The Üetlihof does not have the potential that the city council ascribes to it, he said. If cheap apartments are to be built on the site, the city will first have to write off several hundred million francs. Otherwise, Knauss calculated, each apartment would cost two million francs. “If we remodel the site without a copywriter, we’ll create a luxury resort, and nobody wants that.”
Knauss’ party colleague Dominik Waser also rejected the purchase, but for different reasons. It is absurd that nobody is talking about the financial and economic risks of the climate crisis. Politicians must focus on that and not on buying an expensive property.
Walter Angst (AL) felt that the purchase could not be the solution to the city’s land problems. “Dreaming about residential uses is completely illusory,” he said. The AL also criticized that the deal creates an uneasy connection between the interests of the city and the interests of Credit Suisse.
The FDP would have preferred not to enter into the business at all – partly because it was not known how high the purchase price would ultimately be. The liberal municipal councilor Severin Pfluger put it this way: “Go to the bank and say you would like to buy a property. You wouldn’t know what it would cost, but you would like to finance it 100 percent with a mortgage.” This is exactly what the City Council is asking of Parliament.
Pfluger calculated that the Üetlihof costs at least 3,000 francs per inhabitant. Because the purchase would be entirely leveraged, per capita debt would increase by the same amount. In return, there is only an annual income of 50 francs.
The SP supported the purchase. Florian Utz, for example, spoke for the supporters. “Governer, c’est prévoir,” he said. It is the task of the city that the scope for action for future generations is again available to a certain extent. The risks are manageable because the property is rented out on a long-term basis. You can sell at any time.
The center, which only returned to the municipal council in the last elections, sided with the left in the first major deal of the new legislature. Karin Weyermann argued that the risks are bearable. “Land is the only commodity that cannot be increased.” The property will increase in value.
City councilor Daniel Leupi (Greens) addressed the council before the vote. He too argued that the risks were bearable. And: The city council will not pay an exorbitant price. He repeated what he had already said in the NZZ interview a month ago. At that time he said that the city council “certainly would not go on tutti”. For the majority of the Council, however, his words were not convincing enough.
Almost four times the size of the Sechseläutenplatz
The Üetlihof is located in the southwest of the city of Zurich not far from the Albisgütli in the Brunau district. The site measures almost 56,000 square meters and is therefore almost four times the size of the Sechseläutenplatz. The site is in the zone for five-storey residential buildings.
Credit Suisse sold the complex to the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund for CHF 1 billion in 2012. The city of Zurich assumes that the current sales price will be significantly higher. The Norwegians want to sell the Üetlihof by the end of the year. It is not known who is still in the running for the site, but they are likely to be foreign institutional investors.