Compromises improve chances of approval of badly-needed Czech construction law

Compromises have been made by the Czech Minister for Regional Development Klara Dostalova in her quest to pass a new construction law. But Hospodářské noviny reports that as a result, and thanks to strong support from Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the number of critics of the bill are dwindling and their voices are less shrill. It's also possible that the soaring real estate prices have finally convinced Czechs that excessive bureaucracy in the permitting process has real life impacts on their standard of living. Dostalova's original slogan "One stamp, one office for one project" was the backdrop of her attempt to reduce the time it takes to get a construction permit from five to just one year. One of the critical compromises she made was allowing construction offices to remain in the jurisdiction of the municipalities, rather than being transferred to the state. HN writes that the biggest problems occur when objections to a permit are filed because the whole process can go back to the beginning. Under the new law, if nothing changes, the matter would be taken over by a state construction office which would have between one and four months to make a ruling. The new system would also allow civil servants in one construction office to help out in other offices that have too many projects to deal with in a reasonable amount of time.