Prague want government to give the state information on amendment to the Building Act

Neither the Prague City Hall nor the city districts have enough information on the introduction of the amendment to the Construction Act and the related digitisation. The city's leadership will therefore call on the government to provide the state with the necessary information so that the necessary regulations and methodology are issued in advance and all information systems are tested in time. Prague city councillors decided on this today. The new Construction Act, which comes into force on 1 July this year, establishes a new building permitting process and is to include, among other things, the digitisation of the construction procedure.

The councillors are concerned that the authorities have little time to implement the new system. At the same time, they do not have the necessary equipment. "The law was supposed to bring improvement, speed up and full digitisation of the construction procedure. However, we are facing a situation where many things are not ready," said opposition deputy Radomír Nepil (ANO).

According to Nepil, the authorities lack ordinances, methodology, hardware and the builder's portal is not working. It is not even clear how the new system will be linked to the so-called file service, and he said many of the construction office workers are older and do not want to learn the new system at the last minute and will start leaving.

David Vodrážka (ODS), a councillor and mayor of Prague 13, also spoke about the problems for the authorities. Officials are trained for the law, but not for it. "We are not against digitisation, it will save us a lot, but here we are supposed to hit something in three months, but we have nothing to do it," he said. City Hall management doesn't even know what hardware to buy, he added.

Opposition councillor Pavel Zelenka (Praha sobě) pointed out that in addition to the new agenda in construction proceedings, the authorities must also prepare to take over the handling of traffic offences from 1 July. "The only reasonable solution is to use our legislative initiative and propose postponing the law's entry into force," Zelenka said.

Representatives Jiří Brůžek and Zuzana Freitas Lopesová (both Pirates) defended the Regional Development Ministry's approach. According to information from the ministry, everything will start working without any problems, Brůžek said. Freitas Lopesová said that the digitisation can be done quickly and is commonly done in ministries and is implemented even within weeks. At the same time, ministry representatives need to be invited. Representative Eva Tylová (Pirates) said that without them it seems to her only like a political game.

Source: CTK