The leadership of Prague has agreed to sell the land to the company Nové Holešovice

Prague - The Prague Public Transit Company (DPP) may sell land around the metro station C Nádraží Holešovice to the company Nové Holešovice. The city council today approved the sale after more than a year of discussions. Nové Holešovice is a joint venture of DPP and the development companies Karlín Group and CPI Property Group, which aims to implement the revitalization of the station and construct in its vicinity. The preparation of the initiative stalled after the Pirates refused to support the land sale proposal early last year.

Nové Holešovice was established by DPP in 2021 together with the company Karlín Group, which was later joined by CPI Property Group, which also owns land in the area. The city, or rather DPP, was supposed to sell plots to the joint venture and in the future participate in the profits from the development. The process came to a halt last January after Deputy Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) initially supported the sale at the DPP supervisory board but later changed his mind at the city council, expressing doubts about the joint venture.

After that, the situation froze at a standstill, and the coalition parties were unable to agree on the further course of action. They therefore created a working group to propose amendments to the agreement, and at the end of February this year, city councilors tasked Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda (ODS) and his deputy Petr Hlaváček (STAN) to present a proposal for further action to the city councilors by the end of March.

This happened today; the proposal presented to the councilors contained four alternatives. The first was for the city hall to join the joint venture, while the second was for it to enter into a contract with it. The third alternative included the originally intended process with modifications based on recommendations from the city working group. The last alternative proposed the dissolution of the Nové Holešovice company and the creation of a new station development model involving other interested parties. This was what the Pirates wanted, but the successful alternative was the sale of the land, supported by councilors from Spolu (ODS, TOP 09, KDU-ČSL) and STAN.

According to the city councilor for finance Zdeněk Kovářík (ODS), everything necessary from the capital city’s side is now completed, and before the sale itself, DPP and other stakeholders in the venture must approve the amended contractual documentation and sign it. He cannot estimate how long this will take. Likewise, the exact price for DPP's land, originally set at 173 million crowns, is still unclear and will be higher according to the councilor. "But I cannot say the exact price, because there is a calculation in those materials, and not an exact amount," he said.

"We are glad that common sense prevailed, and it will not be necessary to enforce the signature of transaction documentation in court. Of course, we regret that the joint venture lost time and considerable financial resources for its defense right at the start, instead of investing them in the transformation project of the neglected part of Holešovice. Regardless, work will immediately resume from where it was stopped in February of last year based on fabricated accusations," commented the decision of the councilors Jan Ludvík, head of Karlín Group.

After today's council meeting, the Pirates once again rejected the joint venture. Hřib repeated his previous statement based on information from the Lidovky.cz server regarding suspicions of connections between some people involved in the project and the corruption case Dozimetr. The deputy added that in his view, today's voting was incorrect because it did not take place in what is referred to as the general meeting mode of DPP, which is one of the roles of the city council. This has formal requirements that, according to Hřib, were not met. "The project cannot proceed at this moment anyway," he believes. He added that if the initiative continues based on a defective resolution, the Pirates plan legal steps.

The long-standing halt of the project has been criticized by the opposition in the council for more than a year. "Prague is at the point where we were 15 months ago. After a year and a quarter of absurd blocking and cheap political theater from the Pirates, the Prague coalition has achieved only cosmetic adjustments to the project," stated today Adam Scheinherr, chairman of Prague Sobě and former Prague councilor for transport.

A similar sentiment was echoed by the chairman of the council's control committee and head of Prague ANO, Ondřej Prokop. "Inaction could cost Prague not only large sums of money, but there is also a risk of arbitration. What is even worse – Mr. Hřib has never proposed any alternative solution, and yet the station remains in a completely dilapidated state," he stated. He added that cooperation with the private sector could be a solution for other neglected metro stations, such as Roztyly.