The bombshell came yesterday in a press release from the Municipality of Dampin which they report on the failure of the negotiations: "(...) Last week, there were renewed talks with Vamed about removing the harbour from the lease agreement. Unfortunately, no agreement could be reached on key points of the contract in these talks either. In the opinion of the municipality (...), early removal of the harbour from the contract package would bring financial benefits that Vamed is not prepared to compensate for. A new date for talks has not been agreed. At present, the negotiations can be described as having failed. This means that the restoration of the marina in Damp has been postponed indefinitely. If there is no solution, the harbour cannot be restored before 2030."
Disposal costs are the main point of contention
A bitter blow for the affected owners, who had to leave the partially closed harbour and were hoping to return after a renovation or new construction. The editorial team asked the mayor of Damper, Barbara Feyock, what exactly the problem was during the negotiations.
"We had actually made a lot of progress in the negotiations, but one point is causing major problems: The harbour has to be dredged for reconstruction and conversion. However, the dredged material is contaminated by toxic substances from the boats. Disposal is expensive and time-consuming," she explains. The municipality handed over the harbour to the leaseholder without such problems after it was built many decades ago. Following various commercial sales, the municipality considers the current leaseholder to be the legal successor. Of course, they realise that the problem was not so clearly foreseeable at the time, but even a sharing of the costs between the municipality and the operator was rejected by the operator's negotiating partners.
Feyock confirmed that the future is now really uncertain. "The worst-case scenario would be for everything to stay that way until the lease expires in 2030. That wouldn't help either side." The municipality can only renovate and remodel the harbour again once the current operator has cleared the way; until then, it has all the rights to use the harbour and decides for itself.
Local holiday apartment landlords are already reporting that visitors are disappointed by the empty harbour, which is closed in large parts, and are increasingly asking what is actually going on here. Nobody in Damp can imagine such a situation for many years.
Time is pressing, the funding programmes only run until 2030
And for the municipality, this is also a time problem. Because the costs for the reconstruction are already exploding: Barbara Feyock says that after talks with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Minister President Daniel Günther on the funding guidelines, a lot of emphasis was placed on making the harbour future-proof. This includes not only raising the stone jetty in front of the facility to 3.4 metres, but also converting it to floating jetties. Due in part to the sharp rise in prices for materials and hydraulic engineering, the municipality is now expecting costs of 24.1 million euros instead of the estimated 13 million. However, according to the directive, the subsidised measure must be completed by 2030. If the leaseholder prevents the contract from being cancelled by 2030, this is impossible. The municipality would then be left with the costs and the project would presumably be unfinanceable.
The tenants take a completely different view of the process, as Maike Marckwordt, VAMED spokesperson at the Damp site, explains when asked by the editorial team:
"It is correct that no agreement has yet been reached in the latest round of negotiations with the municipality regarding the removal of the harbour from the overall contract. However, this was to be expected, as both sides always have to go through the relevant committees first.
It is also correct that the contract has been finalised with the exception of the one point concerning the excavation of the harbour. We are therefore very surprised that the municipality has now declared the negotiations to have failed.
In our opinion, excavating the harbour basin - as the municipality is demanding - is not sensible at the present time. The current water depth is sufficient to operate the harbour. The municipality is planning to extensively renovate the harbour. In the course of this construction work, a wide variety of materials will accumulate, meaning that the harbour basin will have to be excavated anyway once the work has been completed. In our view, the negotiations have therefore by no means failed."
The future is completely uncertain for permanent residents in Damp
The future is also uncertain for the 100 lucky owners who managed to get a place in the partially open harbour. Their contracts have already been shortened and they have to leave the facility by the end of September, probably also to avoid possible new autumn storms. Whether and how they will be given a place in 2025 is currently unclear. There is also the question of what will happen during the construction phase. It is unlikely that partial operation will continue during this time. And such a huge project can certainly be realised in just one year.
In contrast, the situation for the operator of Yachtservice Damp is somewhat more relaxed. Managing Director Martin Jannsen reports that the season, which got off to a very bumpy start due to the long lockdown, ultimately went smoothly. "Fortunately, we were able to retain many of our winter storage customers, even if it took a lot of long discussions and persuasion. But we can use the crane and the harbour basin in front of it without restrictions, so operations are not at risk and there are already negotiations about further use for 2025." Fortunately, the concern that customers will not be able to get their boats in or out of the winter storage facility is now a thing of the past.
