The Association of Municipalities wants to leave the agenda of building authorities to the municipalities

Prague - The Association of Local Governments wants to retain the agenda of building authorities for municipalities, which the Ministry of Regional Development plans to take over as part of the upcoming change to the building law. The association has organized a petition for this reason, which it presented today in the Chamber of Deputies.

"We welcome the effort to simplify the building process. Municipalities are builders themselves, and we know that building law needs change. However, we protest against the ministry's plan to take away the functioning of building authorities from municipalities," said Stanislav Polčák, an MEP from STAN and the association's chairman. According to him, the change would mean centralization of state power and an unacceptable interference in the relationship between municipalities and the state.

The change was also opposed by the Pardubice governor Martin Netolický (ČSSD). "Returning to the model of district offices, which the concept of recodification of building law practically represents, is a retreat from the values of democracy and decentralization, and as such it is completely unacceptable from the perspective of the Association of Regions of the Czech Republic," he said. If the government pushes its intention through, Netolický plans to propose changing specialized building authorities to district offices.

The government intends to present the new building law to the Chamber by the end of the year. It promises to shorten the permitting process for constructions from the current average of 5.4 years to one year. It wants to merge territorial proceedings, building proceedings, and EIA into a single permitting process. The new building law also unifies competences under the newly created Supreme Building Authority, which will be the supervisory body for regional building authorities, whose territorial offices will be located in today's municipalities with extended powers.

The Association of Local Governments is a non-governmental organization that was established to promote a fair distribution of tax revenues between municipalities and cities. It gathers 1,800 of the approximately 6,500 municipalities in the Czech Republic.