Liberec plans to sell almost all its property within three years

Liberec - The City of Liberec plans to sell almost all the land and buildings it owns within three years. This will not only end several years of privatization, but also likely the city's development, as the municipality invested most of the revenue from property sales into it. The last major investment will probably be the construction of a tram line to the most densely populated district - Rochlice, reports today's Liberec supplement of Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD).
   "In the future, it will not be possible to maintain the high standard of city development. We will have to invest only in necessary actions," said Čeněk Svoboda, head of the economics department of the Liberec City Hall, to the newspaper. Liberec has also incurred debt and will pay 200 million crowns annually in repayments, which is ten percent of the budget. However, according to Svoboda, repayments will decrease, and if investments and further loans are limited, it will be able to cope with declining revenues from property sales.
    Liberec started selling real estate and later land in 1996, when thousands of buildings and apartments were sold. Currently, the city owns only a few. Since the year before last, it has therefore been selling mainly land on a large scale. Last year, it aimed to raise a quarter of a billion crowns for the budget from it. However, interest was not as high as officials had expected, and revenues from sales were only fulfilled by half.
    This year, the budget counts on revenues from sales of 160 million. "We are currently offering over 1000 plots and we will process an additional 600 this year," said Josef Mazáč, head of the city’s property department, to the newspaper. According to him, there is the greatest interest in smaller plots, for example, for those under garages, the city may ask for up to 2500 crowns per square meter. Large and lucrative plots are offered to larger investors, and prices per meter are mostly significantly higher.
    Municipal buildings still have more success than land in privatization. That is also why the city hall wants to renew their sale. "We are finding out to what extent they are suitable for sale," Mazáč said. The city is selling property at auction. Currently, there are 11 houses on offer, and the city hall wants to include another 20, some of which have been blocked until now. Among them is also the Liebieg villa, which the city bought three years ago at an auction from the bankruptcy estate of Textilana. It paid 25 million crowns for the neo-Gothic building and invested an additional five million into repairs.