The construction office in Olomouc will transfer 100 to 120 state administration officials

Ing. arch. Stašek Žerava (Ateliér BONMOT): Multipurpose building NAMIRO Olomouc, completed in 2013

Olomouc – The new building law will mean the transfer of more than a hundred government officials from the Olomouc city hall to a state-established building office. The city hall wants to offer these officials available space in the Namiro building, adjacent to the historic city center, which currently houses part of the city hall. Mayor Miroslav Žbánek said this to reporters after a meeting with the Minister for Regional Development Klára Dostálová (for ANO).

The new building law moves building offices under the state and anticipates the establishment of the Supreme Building Office. Under it, individual building offices will be organized similarly to how it is now in, for example, the financial administration. According to the government, the new building law amendment is primarily aimed at speeding up building proceedings and ensuring compliance with set deadlines. The law is set to come into force in mid-2023, with some changes beginning on January 1 of next year. The approved form of the legislation has many critics, and its discussion has been accompanied by disputes.

"We, as a council, have already discussed the future organizational arrangement within the framework of the new building law. We are talking about the transfer of approximately 100 to 120 government officials to the building office. We are prepared to free up the spaces that the city currently has on lease, meaning the Namiro building, where we want to concentrate and centralize all the officials who would transition in the future," stated Žbánek. According to the mayor, the city hall intends to negotiate with the regional office about whether officials from the regional building office could also be located in the Namiro building.

According to Žbánek, the new building law will mean financial relief for the city hall. "Within the mixed model of state administration and self-government, we subsidized each state official. This means that funds from tax allocations designated for city operations were also used for them. By freeing ourselves from burdens such as rent or the renewal of information systems and technologies, there should be savings on the side of the city treasury. I believe this will not be at the expense of changes in the tax allocation budget and that the state will truly take over its agenda," Žbánek believes.

Thanks to the amendment to the building law, cities, according to Žbánek, will no longer have to deal with objections of systemic bias. "We are forced to process the agenda of completing the D1 (near Přerov) just because someone declares Přerov and the city leadership to be biased. Or conversely, we will hand over issues regarding, for example, the (construction of the high-rise building) Šantovka somewhere else because we are biased. Simply put, all of this should go away," added the mayor.

However, the law, which has been in preparation for a long time, has many opponents. The parliamentary opposition and senators criticized the transfer of offices under the state. The Senate even unanimously rejected it, and the Chamber had to override this rejection. The opposition coalition Spolu (ODS, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09) and Pirates with Mayors state that if they govern after the October elections, they will change the proposal that was pushed through now. Opponents argue that state administration will move further away from citizens. However, Dostálová assures that this is not a threat. According to her, the state will also not build new offices from scratch but will try to use the current spaces.