BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Deutsche Umwelthilfe has applied for higher parking fees and parking restrictions for SUV vehicles in 150 German cities. As the organization announced on Tuesday, applications were sent out to the respective mayors in all 16 federal states. Most of the applications went to North Rhine-Westphalia (36) and Baden-Württemberg (26) - including the cities of Koln, Düsseldorf, Heidelberg, Stuttgart and Mainz. According to DUH, the aim of the applications is to get the cities to take tougher action against heavy off-road vehicles.

According to the environmental organization, residents' parking fees should be increased to at least 360 euros per year, with a sliding scale depending on the size of the vehicle. Deutsche Umwelthilfe is aiming for much stricter limits on parking.

The city of Paris is the model for these efforts. In a public survey there in February of this year, a majority voted in favor of tripling the parking fees for this type of vehicle. From September, the French capital wants to charge 18 euros instead of the usual six euros for one-hour parking for SUVs and other heavy vehicles in the city center.

Following the Paris decision, the DUH also called on German citizens online to take action against the vehicles it describes as "monster SUVs". 19,000 people took part in the campaign and instructed Umwelthilfe to submit the relevant applications to the cities on their behalf.

The DUH emphasizes that it does not consider family cars such as vans to be SUVs. But here, too, there has been a trend for many years "that cars of every vehicle class are getting bigger and heavier", the organization complains.

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities is cautious about the DUH's plans and points to obstacles to increasing parking fees. The fees currently charged "often barely correspond to the costs of building and maintaining parking spaces", explained spokesman Alexander Handschuh in response to a dpa query. However, the association believes that reacting to this by staggering parking fees according to vehicle size would be "associated with a high level of bureaucracy". It is therefore not surprising that only a few cities have attempted such a regulation to date.

"It would also have to be ensured that such fees do not put certain population groups, such as families, at a disadvantage," Handschuh pointed out. The Federal Administrative Court considers excessive jumps in fees to be "unlawful unequal treatment". Local authorities therefore needed "room for maneuver" in the management of parking spaces./faa/DP/jha