Steel high seats in Aargau: IG Wild beim Wild queries the authorities

In July 2026, IG Wild beim Wild submitted a request for information to the Aargau municipalities of Schwaderloch and Mettauertal, as well as to the cantonal Department of Construction, Transport and the Environment, concerning two hunting high seats.

What stands on the High Rhine

The two structures are located in the lower Aare valley near the German border, on the meadows «Usseri Schiltegg» and «Wanne», at around 500 metres above sea level. Both stand outside the building zone.

These are not the classic wooden ladder seats that can be carried away after the season. Photos show enclosed wooden cabins with window openings and a mono-pitch roof, mounted on high, hot-dip galvanised steel frames. Close-ups of the supports demonstrate that the square profiles are anchored in the ground. Access is via permanently fixed metal ladders, in some cases supplemented by platforms with railings.

A local resident became aware of the structures, perceiving them as a new addition to the terrain, and raised the question of whether such a construction is permissible outside the building zone. IG Wild beim Wild took up the enquiry and forwarded it to the responsible authorities.

Why the type of construction makes the legal difference

Structures outside the building zone are subject to the federal Spatial Planning Act. The Federal Office for Spatial Development has for years maintained that building here is permitted only in narrow, exceptional cases. One point is decisive that is often overlooked in practice: the consent of the landowners is not sufficient, and a municipal building permit alone is likewise not sufficient. Without the express approval of the cantonal authority, a permit outside the building zone is invalid.

In the canton of Aargau, the building permits department is responsible for this. Under Section 63 of the cantonal building act, it examines those applications that require cantonal approval, expressly including buildings outside the building zone. The municipality conducts the procedure and the public consultation; the canton decides on approval.

Whether a hunting installation is subject to a permit at all depends on its size, permanence and anchoring. The legal situation regarding high seats in Switzerland is structured differently from canton to canton, but everywhere follows the same basic principle. The canton of Zurich draws the line expressly: high seats for hobby hunting and wildlife observation are exempt from the spatial-planning permit there only if their area is less than two square metres and no foundations are needed. In the canton of Bern, permanently mounted stands or those fixed to trees require an exemption permit under Article 24 of the Spatial Planning Act, whereas simple mobile ladder seats that are removed after the season remain permit-free.

The constructions identified in Aargau are enclosed cabins on anchored steel frames. By the standards applied by other cantons, they lie well beyond the threshold for permit exemption.

Site-bound status is not automatic

In discussions about hunting installations, the argument regularly surfaces that such structures are site-bound under Article 24 of the Spatial Planning Act anyway, because hobby hunting simply takes place in the forest and the fields. This interpretation falls short. Site-bound status must be positively demonstrated in each individual case and is by no means automatically recognised, particularly in the case of elaborate, permanently anchored installations. No blanket free pass for hunting infrastructure can be derived from it.

Equally untenable is the argument that metal substructures are the modern standard on grounds of accident prevention and liability. Safety considerations may explain the choice of material, but they change nothing about the legal question. The more massive, higher and more permanent an installation is, the more likely the ordinary permit requirement applies.

No trace in the building publications

Wild beim Wild has reviewed the publicly accessible construction notices of both host municipalities. For Schwaderloch, this covers the entries on the municipal website as well as the municipal announcements published in the Fricktal regional portal for the years 2018 to 2026. For Mettauertal, the construction publications from 2021 onwards were examined.

None of these sources contains a building application or a building permit for a raised hide, a high seat or a comparable hunting structure. The published projects concern residential buildings, heat pumps, photovoltaic installations, shelters, a mobile phone mast and an amphibian pond.

That projects outside the building zone do indeed appear in these publications is shown by an example from Mettauertal: a building application for parcel 395 in the Rebberg area bears the explicit zoning note «outside building zone». Such applications are therefore clearly marked when they exist.

The finding gains significance from the period of validity: in the canton of Aargau, a building permit is valid for two years from the date it takes legal effect. If no construction takes place within that time, the permit lapses — regardless of whether the authority remains inactive. For structures of more recent date, only a permit from the last few years would therefore be possible, and it is precisely this period that the research covers.

This is not proof. Searchable archives are never complete, and older notices disappear from the municipal websites. All that is documented is what the research shows: no corresponding procedure appears in the publicly findable publications. The question of whether one ever took place can ultimately only be answered by the municipalities and the canton.

New limitation rule since January 2026

Until the end of 2025, the principle «once illegal, always illegal» applied outside the building zone. In 2021, the Federal Supreme Court had ruled that the authorities must require the removal of unlawful structures in non-building areas even after more than thirty years, provided the remaining conditions are met.

With the second stage of the revision of the Spatial Planning Act, this has changed. Since 1 January 2026, the right to restoration of the lawful state generally lapses after thirty years. The deadline is deemed to have been met if the authority intervenes for the first time beforehand; no time-barring occurs if public-policy interests such as safety or health are endangered. As of 1 July 2026, it was additionally established that only the cantonal authority can make a legally valid decision on an exceptional waiver of the removal requirement.

For hunting structures, this has an unpleasant consequence: anyone who leaves a high seat standing unnoticed for long enough can in future hope for grandfathering protection. All the more reason for municipalities and cantons to look promptly at newly erected installations. For the two Aargau high seats, which according to the informant are of more recent date, the question of time-barring does not arise in any case.

A well-known enforcement problem

The case on the Hochrhein does not stand alone. Wild beim Wild has documented on several occasions that in Swiss forests numerous high seats stand without permission and that enforcement by municipalities and cantons is largely absent. An example from Grisons illustrates the practice: in Langwies, the municipality issued a time-limited amnesty for unauthorised high seats. By the end of May, nine installations had been reported, although it must be assumed there were considerably more.

The range of hunting structures extends from the simple wooden ladder with a seat board to the roofed high seat with a lying surface and screening. Legally, these are two entirely different categories. In practice they are often treated the same way, namely not at all.

What the enquiry is intended to clarify

The IG Wild beim Wild has put separate questions to the two municipalities and to the canton. From Schwaderloch and Mettauertal it wants to know whether there is a building application and a legally valid permit for the respective high seat, when any public consultation took place, and how the municipality assesses the permit requirement if no procedure was carried out. At the same time, it has requested access to the publicly available procedural files.

From the canton it expects information on whether the approval procedure under paragraph 63 of the Building Act was carried out, how Aargau practice classifies fixed and anchored high seats of this size, and what steps are envisaged in the case of possibly unauthorised structures outside the building zone.

The last question is likely to carry weight beyond the individual case. A clear cantonal statement on whether such constructions require a permit would be instructive for the entire Aargau practice.

The deadline for responses runs until 7 August 2026. Wild beim Wild will report on the replies.