In the area of the former Bekon textile factory, Hrádek nad Nisou plans to build up to 50 apartments

Hrádek nad Nisou – The city hall plans to build up to 50 apartments in the area of the former Bekon textile factory in Hrádek nad Nisou in the Liberec region. The city will not be building them, as the local administration is negotiating collaboration with a developer and a housing cooperative. The city would like to contribute land to the project in exchange for several apartments that it can then offer to essential professions, such as doctors, police officers, or teachers, said Mayor Pavel Farský (Hrádek needs changes!).

Hrádek has about 150 municipal apartments. "We do not have any new construction; the last one was the Russian Villa apartment building, which we renovated in 2017 with a loan, which we are still repaying. We are not planning any apartment buildings at the moment; we have tried in the past, but we are not able to build them at developers' prices. That is why we decided to address housing construction at Bekon in collaboration with a developer through cooperative housing," added the mayor. According to him, the city is also preparing land for the construction of family houses.

In the Bekon area, threads were once dyed; the textile factory previously employed several hundred people, but production ended more than 20 years ago. The city bought the twenty-hectare area in 2015 for six million crowns to control its use. Most of the buildings were demolished by the city two years ago; the factory chimney and the administrative building remain, which the city wants to convert into apartments. The revitalization of Bekon is the largest investment project in the city's history, and the city borrowed half a billion crowns for it and other investments.

Construction workers have already completed the sports hall and the archive building in the area; work is underway on the polyclinic, and a retention basin and park are planned. According to Farský, the apartment building should rise in the space between the administrative building and the sports hall. "We are currently negotiating to expand the construction of the apartment building to include the renovation of the administrative building, thus creating one large apartment building," added the mayor.

The city hall would like to address the construction in the form of a housing cooperative. "The housing cooperative has caught our interest because, on one hand, we would be part of it as a city, so we would have an influence on the construction and what would be created there. Now we have built some buildings there, and we do not want something that does not belong there to be created. Moreover, people can achieve cooperative housing more easily than a mortgage. So it is also more accommodating for future tenants, owners of the cooperative housing," Farský added.

Recently, the number of cooperative projects in the Liberec Region has been increasing; according to the chairman of the board and director of the Liberec Building Housing Cooperative Sever, Petr Černý, there are many advantages over purchasing an apartment in ownership. "The initial deposit is 20 or 25 percent of the apartment's value, the person does not go into debt because the housing cooperative carries the loan, and the cooperative member repays it in the form of monthly payments," he said. According to him, cooperatives often achieve better conditions and lower interest rates, and even a senior can afford to acquire an apartment, which they would not be able to afford with a mortgage.