Plzeň will continue with the territorial proceedings for the shopping center

Plzeň - After a six-month interruption, the Plzeň building authority will continue the zoning procedure for the construction of a shopping center in Plzeň, which was rejected by a local referendum in January. Due to a complaint from activists who claimed that the construction and administrative department of the Plzeň city hall was biased, the decision-making process was transferred in April from the city to the regional office and then in June to the municipal office in Rokycany. However, the Ministry for Regional Development (MMR) returned it to Plzeň. It should start soon, said Deputy Mayor Martin Zrzavecký (ČSSD) to ČTK. The councilors will discuss a new legal analysis on the city's further course of action on Thursday, aimed at preventing the construction.
    "The mayor will now decide on the bias of the secretary, and I expect that he will decide like the MMR, that we are not biased, and our construction and administrative office will continue with the zoning procedure," he stated. The secretary, who according to Zrzavecký is the head of the office and is responsible for the performance of state administration and local self-government, will direct the department to continue the zoning procedure.
    The city anticipated challenges to the planned construction from the group that pushed for the referendum in Plzeň, but according to the deputy, it expected a positive or negative decision from the department regarding the construction already in the summer. It did not anticipate challenges to the decision-making process, which only ended up at the MMR.
    According to the referendum results, the council was to take all necessary steps immediately to prevent the construction worth 2.5 billion CZK. The city has so far terminated the lease on the marginal lands of the planned construction with the investor, the Prague firm Amádeus, and offered him 270 million CZK for the entire 2.5-hectare area. The investor disagrees with both and wants to negotiate further.
    On October 10, the councilors will approve the announcement of an architectural competition for the area after the demolished cultural center. They will also discuss further steps proposed in the legal analysis by the Kocián, Šolc, Balaštík office. "I think the councilors will be satisfied, because it answers questions about their responsibilities under the law on local referendums and the law on municipalities," said the deputy. It outlines the risks that may arise for the city, but it does not specify concrete possible damages, as they cannot be determined.
    All councilors have already received the non-public material. "Lawyers say that our previous steps were unequivocally correct," he said. For example, they noted that the city acted correctly when it ordered the company Amádeus to vacate the marginal lands and filed a lawsuit for their eviction.
    According to the deputy, the new legal outlook indicates that the investor does not meet the parameters of the zoning plan because there is not a proportional representation of trade, housing, offices, and culture in the center, with trade being overwhelmingly predominant. The lawyers do not recommend changing the zoning plan, which was the basic requirement of the referendum. According to the lawyers, the Plzeň problem concerns a specific commercial establishment but not others, such as smaller ones. The city, according to the deputy, cannot do more. "After the zoning procedure is completed, we can still change the regulatory conditions, and then we will wait for the results of the architectural competition," he stated.
    According to the legal representative of the investor, Jan Petřík, the process has gone back to the beginning, that is, to this April, when a public discussion took place, during which the activists raised the issue of bias. "After that, not a single mark was made on the file. The zoning decision could have already been made," he said.