Praha wants to change the city's development planning; the current one is bad

Prague - The leadership of the capital city wants to change the current system of urban development planning, as the current one is inadequate. They plan to create the position of advisor for urbanism and architecture, change the functioning of the Department of Development of the Capital City (ÚRM) and the municipal spatial planning department, and start working on some rules of the game. This was stated today by the Deputy Mayor for spatial planning, Josef Nosek (ODS), to journalists.
     According to Nosek, the city is not active in its approach to development planning. "The current state, where the city waits for individual entities to prepare their projects and then only issues its opinions, is passive. Our inability to maintain the spatial plan without thousands of changes harms the city. Aimlessness and wandering in the field of urbanism lead to chaos, disorder, and poor results, from which everyone ultimately suffers,” said Nosek.
     According to Nosek and experts and architects, a change in approach is inevitable. This was confirmed today at a press conference by architects Josef Pleskot, Jakub Fišer, and Pavel Hnilička, whom the city has invited to a group called Vision 2050. This group is intended to assist the city in changing the system.
     Prague wants to change the functioning of the municipal spatial planning department and the Department of Development of the Capital City by the end of the year so that duplication is eliminated and planning is expedited and simplified. Currently, both municipal officials and people from ÚRM express their opinions on proposals for changes to the spatial plan. According to Nosek, part of the staff from ÚRM will move to the spatial planning department. ÚRM will continue to be the developer of the spatial plan, principles of spatial development, and will focus on the digitization of data.
     Furthermore, Prague aims to create the position of advisor for architecture and urbanism, who should be a recognized expert. The advisor is expected to be associated with Nosek and the Prague mayor but should not be dependent on the political leadership of the city. "I expect from him the ability to think in contexts and maintain an overview when solving problems,” Nosek stated. According to architect Pleskot, it will not be easy to find such a personality. "But if it succeeds, it will be something fantastic,” Pleskot remarked.
     Together with experts, Prague would also like to develop some kind of memorandum or declaration that summarizes what Prague means and how it should evolve.
     Experts have long criticized Prague for lacking any development concept and yielding to the pressures of lobbyists and developers. They also stated that the previous development has been driven mainly by short-term and individual interests of the political representation. They have therefore established the initiative For a New Prague and called on Prague representatives for a debate.