New Prague building regulations will be effective from August 1

Prague - The new Prague building regulations, approved today by the city council, will take effect on August 1st. The Ministry for Regional Development (MMR) suspended them last January, giving Prague a fifteen-month deadline to address comments and obtain notification from the European Commission. The amendment was prepared by the then-mayor Tomáš Hudeček (independent, formerly TOP 09) and after the elections by former deputy mayor Matěj Stropnický (SZ/Trojkoalice). Both criticize today's version, saying it does not regulate sufficiently - according to Hudeček, advertising; according to Stropnický, developers' plans.

The new Prague building regulations largely adopted the wording of the valid but suspended regulations based on Hudeček's proposal from 2014. They were adjusted regarding requirements for the lighting of residential rooms and general principles of land use planning. According to Mayor Adriana Krnáčová (ANO), the form of the regulations has also changed; they must be written in paragraphs like a law.

The regulation of advertising has also changed. Hudeček wanted to ban billboards larger than six square meters in the buildable areas of Prague, while Stropnický's amendment in today's version includes a ban on advertisements larger than four square meters in heritage reserves and zones, with a requirement for two advertisements to be at least 100 meters apart outside of them.

Stropnický worked on the proposal until last summer. He believed the regulations could have been stricter for developers. "When a developer now comes to Bubny, Žižkov, or another large development area, they will be the ones deciding where the streets and public spaces and facilities should be. This should be the role of the city," he told reporters today.

After he was stripped of responsibility for the regulations, the mayor presented another version to the council for approval at the beginning of August. However, according to Stropnický, she omitted parts that developers did not like. At the end of October, the council then prepared the regulations for submission for notification to Brussels.

According to the mayor, following today's approval of the amendment, the constitutional complaint filed by MMR against the original wording of the regulations is moot. However, the ministry had to challenge the document legally because Prague did not meet the fifteen-month deadline for submitting new regulations. According to Stropnický, MMR can raise any objections to the regulations again in the coming days and suspend their validity once more.

The building regulations serve as a supplementary regulation to the building law. They generally define requirements for land use and technical requirements for buildings. Prague has had its building regulations as the only city in the country for more than 100 years. Due to disputes, the ministry wanted to revoke this privilege from the capital, and the proposal still remains in the prepared amendment to the building law. According to both Krnáčová and Stropnický, it will take into account that Prague currently has valid regulations.