Facts
The "Winterthur Insurance" company wants to build a mixed development with a shopping center, an office building, and apartment buildings in the center of Schlieren. In the approval procedure, the Office for Technical Facilities and Air Hygiene of the Canton of Zurich (ATAL) recommended a reduction of the parking space offer to a maximum of 271 spaces. The Schlieren City Council approved the construction project, but only reduced the number of mandatory parking spaces to a total of 398 and approved 24 additional parking spaces for solar and electric vehicles.
The Traffic Club of Switzerland (VCS) filed a complaint against the building permit, requesting that the approved number of parking spaces be limited to a maximum of 271 and that the designation of parking spaces for electric vehicles and solar vehicles be waived. The Administrative Court dismissed the complaint, as it did not see the air hygiene measures plan or the guidelines of the Building Directorate as a legal basis for a reduction in the number of parking spaces.
The VCS appealed the judgment of the Administrative Court to the Federal Supreme Court.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court upholds the appeal to the extent that it enters into it. It states that the planned construction project constitutes a new stationary facility within the meaning of the Environmental Protection Act (USG) and the Air Pollution Control Ordinance (LRV), whose emissions must be limited as far as technically and operationally possible and economically viable, within the framework of precautionary measures.
According to Art. 11 para. 2 USG and Art. 18 LRV, parking restrictions are permissible as precautionary measures to reduce traffic emissions. If the impacts, taking into account the existing environmental pollution, are…