The municipal council meetings are generally public, but even there information is often blacked out, such as owners/interested parties of building plots, etc. etc.
Klappe is still in the building committee, so in the preliminary stage. These meetings can be split into a public and a non-public part, but it is questionable whether that justifies the effort. In the technical meetings and building committees it is simply more practical if no public is present – the proposals (see §41 Local Government Act, advisory committees!) are anyway submitted afterwards to the public municipal council meeting for resolution.
As it appears from Klappe’s description, there must be an edge-of-town location that is to be expanded in a structural context and probably can be. The emotional reasoning can just as well be written down, the factual aspects are clarified beforehand with the responsible officer who also sits on the building committee or one speaks directly beforehand with one of the knowledgeable citizens participating in the meeting. Assuming the will of the municipality. If the municipality is not willing, it is as good as dead anyway, because one cannot sue for the creation of a statute or the expansion of an area for which a residential building statute exists.
Regards
Dirk Grafe