Prague will stop accepting applications for changes to the zoning plan

Prague - The capital city will stop accepting applications for changes to the existing zoning plan at the end of September, which is set to remain in effect until 2022. The last deadline for submitting a request for a change is September 30. The city hall announced this today in a press release. For the plan, which has been in effect since 2000, the city hall has recorded nearly 6,980 changes, with over 700 currently being prepared. The city is also developing a new so-called Metropolitan Plan. The zoning plan is a key document that determines where construction is allowed in the city and to what extent.

"Every new change logically significantly slows down all the others. The most important thing at this moment is to complete the changes currently being processed and stabilize the situation before the public discussion of the new zoning plan, or rather the Metropolitan Plan, which is our joint coalition priority in this electoral period," stated First Deputy Mayor Petr Hlaváček (for TOP 09).

According to him, representatives of city districts and development companies were informed about the upcoming step as early as June. The changes that are being processed or have already been completed currently cover an area of 336 square kilometers, which is 68 percent of Prague's territory. "This means 367.4 changes per year, which means that one change to the zoning plan is added to the system every day. This is completely lethal for urban planning in Prague and the development of the capital city," said architect Filip Foglar from Hlaváček's team.

The halt in the processing of new changes is also necessary due to the preparation of the Metropolitan Plan, as all modifications must be incorporated into the new document. The city hall is currently evaluating thousands of comments that have been received from the public and institutions regarding the proposal for the new plan. "Proposals for changes submitted to the Prague city hall after the end of September should be rejected by the city council of Prague, as it is likely that they will not be able to be processed in time and incorporated into the proposal for the new zoning plan," stated Ondřej Boháč, director of the city Institute for Planning and Development (IPR), which prepared the draft of the Metropolitan Plan.

There have been disputes in the past concerning the new zoning plan, which led to the current Deputy Mayor Hlaváček and temporarily the main author of the new plan Roman Koucký stepping down from their positions. Ultimately, he returned to lead the team preparing the plan after winning a tender. Environmental organizations and the National Heritage Institute have criticized the plan, among others. It was originally supposed to come into effect as early as next year, but the city negotiated a postponement until 2023.