Property deal

Head of municipality alleged to have profited from rezoning

Symbolic image

(Bild: APA/Harald Schneider)

Once again we are looking at a Lower Austrian municipality whose head is said to have profited from land rezoning. He sees his business as "morally justifiable". The municipal supervisory authority is now investigating the land deal.

Alfred Riedl, former president of the Association of Municipalities and mayor of Grafenwörth in the district of Krems, is not the only one who is said to have profited handsomely from the rezoning and sale of land. It has now also become known that Günter Schaubach (ÖVP), mayor of the municipality of Pyhra in the district of St. Pölten, is said to have made a tidy profit from the purchase, rezoning and sale of a plot of land.  

"Morally justifiable"
In "ZiB 2", the head of the municipality considered his land deals to be "morally justifiable". He emphasized that his benchmark was whether his transactions were carried out with the "necessary distance" from his office.

The politician owns properties throughout Pyhra. He has bought these from citizens, mostly older people, but also from the municipality itself. But one particular rezoning is said to have made Schaubach a lot of money. 

Mayor Günter Schaubach

(Bild: Gemeinde Pyhra)

Reclassification previously failed due to the municipality
The head of the village bought a 2500 square meter area from petrol station operators. One of the two managing directors, Franz Marchat, a former FPÖ politician, confirmed to the media that they had wanted to sell the property, but that an application for a higher building class had been rejected by the municipality. 

The entrepreneurs finally sold the site to Schaubach for 373,900 euros. Just two months later, the local council rezoned part of the plot to building class 3. The head of the village left the room during the corresponding vote. The NEOS abstained, the other councillors voted in favor. Buildings up to eleven meters and four storeys high could now be erected on the plot.

A year has passed. Mayor Schaubach sold the plot for 596,000 euros to a developer who had originally been interested. Before taxes and duties, Schaubach earned 222,100 euros, it is said.

Amount donated to parish
According to the ÖVP politician, it was only 124,000 euros. Only 40,000 euros of this was due to the increase in value as a result of the rededication. He donated this amount to the local parish. "The rest was profit, I stand by that," says Schaubach.

According to media reports, the municipal supervisory authority has now initiated an investigation into the matter.