Kolinska outlines approval process for Prague's Metropolitan Plan

The magazine Euro runs an interview with Petra Kolinska, the Prague councilor in charge of urban planning. In it, she explains that the city has completed the first portion of the city's Metropolitan plan and that it's time for members of the public to have their say. She begins by outlining some of the priorities of the new plan, including which issues she expects to be controversial.

"I'm expecting a stormy debate over the idea to build highrise buildings in several locations," Kolinska told Euro. "Primarily it concerns the Pankrác plain and the Vysočanský valley, meaning from Holešovice across Libeň to Vysočany….Another big challenge is to find enough space for the construction of new apartments. Most of the sites should be on land which, while they're in the wider city center, they've been abandoned and they usually create a barrier in the access to the city. Examples of this are brownfields such as in former the cargo railroad station at Smíchov, the old Bubny railroad or Rohan Island."

Kolinska admits that it's not easy to put the ideas of so many groups together. "Until now, architects and lawyers were working on the plan. Now the city districts get their say along with land owners and the public. They can all have an impact on the proposed plan in the discussion period. Objections can be submitted from June 27 until July 26.