Activists: 45% of Pilsen residents will participate in the referendum on the department store

Plzeň - According to its preparatory committee, the referendum on the construction of a shopping center in the center of Plzeň is expected to have around 45 percent participation from more than 130,000 adult residents of Plzeň on Friday and Saturday. The legally mandated minimum threshold is 35 percent. About 80 percent of voters are expected to vote against the construction, said Martin Marek, the representative of the preparatory committee, at today’s press conference. This will be the third local referendum in a large Czech city since the enactment of the local referendum law in 2000. Prior ones were held in Brno and Mladá Boleslav.
     Participation, according to Marek, will be slightly lower than in the presidential elections taking place on the same days. According to activists, it is unfortunate that in eight out of 178 electoral districts, the referendum commissioners will be in different buildings than the presidential election commissions; this includes 6,335 voters. "In the largest case, in Bručná, it is very far - in the Primavera Hotel and in the vehicle registration office. If people do not have a car, they would have to spend half a day voting because the locations are not connected by public transport without transfers," said Petr Vaněk from the preparatory committee. Activists will monitor how this affects voting. In the "presidential commissions," they will have volunteers with signs indicating the location of the voting room for the referendum. "If there are large differences in participation in these districts, we are ready to go to court," said Marek. According to him, commissions in the other 170 districts are in the same buildings but in different rooms.
     Supporters of the referendum, who were able to provide 562 members to the commissions, submitted 134 names to the city hall by the deadline, along with several dozen other contacts. The preparatory committee for the referendum will spend about 170,000 crowns on its campaign, of which 90,000 was for a 12-page newspaper that is being distributed from Saturday to more than 64,000 mailboxes. The strongest arguments from the flyers and posters state that the giant complex with 90 retail outlets would cause the collapse of small retailers in the center, traffic jams, and more noise and dust.
     The multi-functional building costing 2.5 billion crowns is to be built by the development company Amádeus on the site of the demolished cultural house, which also printed newspapers in support of the construction and claims that support for its project is also strong because it will bring up to 1,000 jobs and economic benefits to Plzeň. The city, which is allocating 200,000 crowns for the campaign, has distributed leaflets. Their main message is that if the building cannot be constructed, the city would have to buy the land from the investor for 263 million crowns, which would significantly burden the city.