Hunting seats in the Aare valley: the canton waves it through, the questions remain

In response to an enquiry from IG Wild beim Wild, the Aargau department for building permits announced on 23 July 2026 that for two high seats in the lower Aare valley there is neither a building application nor a building permit, and that none is required. The information was provided by section head Markus Krause after consulting the forestry department and the municipality of Mettauertal. In the meantime, two further seats of the same construction have appeared in the same area, bringing the number of documented structures to four.

Four structures, two municipalities

The seats stand in the lower Aare valley near the German border, at around 500 metres above sea level, outside the building zone. According to the informant, who knows the area, three of the four structures stand within the municipality of Mettauertal and one within that of the neighbouring municipality of Schwaderloch. The canton's information referred solely to the two locations reported first in Mettauertal; no official assessment exists for the other two.

The photos do not show lightweight ladder seats. They are enclosed wooden cabins with a mono-pitch roof, a door and window openings, set on tall, hot-dip galvanised steel frames. Access is via permanently mounted metal ladders, in some cases supplemented by platforms with railings.

The cantonal practice

The canton names three criteria under which hunting seats in Aargau are exempt from the requirement for a building permit: a footprint measured at the top of no more than two square metres, no fully enclosed or glazed construction, and the consent of the landowner. In the assessment of the municipality and the canton, the two structures examined meet these conditions. No assessment exists for the two seats that appeared later.

On the method of construction, the building permits department notes that the posts are merely set into the ground, neither foundation-mounted nor anchored. They therefore fall under the aforementioned practice. Were the posts to be firmly set in concrete, however, a permit requirement would apply.

The canton expressly rejects a general site-dependency for hunting installations under Article 24 of the Spatial Planning Act. It cannot be affirmed or denied as a matter of principle, but only on a case-by-case basis.

Who controls

In Aargau, the responsible building police authority is the municipality. It initiates proceedings when it becomes aware of unauthorised structures. Where appropriate, the canton draws the municipality's attention to such structures and assists it with legal and procedural questions.

This means that the control of hunting infrastructure outside the building zone lies with the municipalities, that is, with the level that is closest to an examination in the specific case and at the same time has the fewest specialist resources.

What the criteria fail to capture

The cantonal criteria focus on the cabin: its floor area and its enclosedness. The overall height of the installation is not captured. The two structures rise several metres above the ground on their steel frames and stand at field margins and embankment edges, from where they are visible far and wide. A cabin may fall below the two-square-metre threshold and yet, as an overall construction, stand as a striking feature in the open landscape.

This is not legally incidental. According to the case law of the Federal Supreme Court, structures and installations requiring a permit are those permanent facilities that are in a fixed relationship to the ground and significantly alter the space in outward appearance. What is decisive is whether an installation entails spatial consequences so important that there is a public interest in prior control. The cantons may define the federal-law concept more broadly, but not more narrowly. Whether a practice that focuses solely on the cabin area holds up to this standard is an open question.

The choice of materials also speaks to durability. Hot-dip galvanised steel is used because it remains weather-resistant for decades. Anyone building this way is not planning for a single season. Incidentally, galvanised components exposed to the elements release zinc into the surrounding soil as they weather, an effect that the canton of Zurich has documented for steel objects such as masts and lamp posts. Compared with the zinc loads from agricultural fertilisation, however, this input is negligible.

Open questions

The canton's information is based on consultation with the municipality of Mettauertal. The reply does not indicate whether the footprint of the two high seats was measured on site and whether the condition of the post bases was checked.

It also remains open how the criterion of a not fully enclosed construction is interpreted in practice. The available images show cabins with a door, roof and window openings on several sides. Exactly where the boundary lies between an open hunting stand and an enclosed cabin does not emerge from the reply.

IG Wild beim Wild put these questions to the responsible section head of the building permits department, Markus Krause. Krause had answered the first enquiry in detail within a few days in July; however, the canton no longer responded to the more in-depth questions about the basis of his own classification.

What the case shows

The information from Aarau is instructive beyond the individual case, because it explicitly sets out the Aargau practice for the first time. The two-square-metre threshold corresponds to the rule that the canton of Zurich also applies.

At the same time, the case shows how far the permit-free scope extends. Constructions several metres high, with a cabin, roof and fixed access ladder, can be erected outside the building zone without any procedure taking place, without public notice and without any possibility for third parties to comment. Whether a structure meets the criteria is only assessed once someone asks.

Wild beim Wild has long documented that in Swiss forests numerous high seats stand without a permit and that enforcement is patchy. On the legal situation regarding high seats in Switzerland the Aargau case adds another facet: here no permit is missing, here none is required in the first place.