Multifunctional building with 65 flats to be built in Černý Most in Prague 14 within two years

A new multifunctional building with apartments for affordable housing, a restaurant, a library and a town hall information centre is to be built near the Černý Most B metro station in Prague 14 within two years. The flats will be intended for teachers, police officers and other people working in so-called socially key professions. The construction was inaugurated today by representatives of Prague 14, the municipality, the construction company Geosan and the company Affordable Housing Česká spořitelna (DBČS). The construction of the building will cost CZK 630 million. The town hall, the municipality and DBČS are participating in the financing.

The site where the workers are already working on the construction of the house has been a dilapidated torso of an unfinished office building for several decades. "The mixed-use building will house 65 apartments for preferred professions, a restaurant, a café, a branch of the municipal library and a contact point for the district office. So that people who get off the metro after 20 steps will be at the office and will not have to go to (our) old building," said Mayor Jiří Zajac (ODS).

The building will have two underground and eight above-ground floors. The basement will be mostly garages and cellars. The first and second floors will house the library, the information office of the municipal district, a restaurant and accessories to these non-residential premises. The third through eighth floors will be apartments. A total of 65 flats will be built, ranging in size from 1 bedroom to 4 bedrooms. Part of them will be owned by the municipal district and part by DBČS. The town hall will decide who will be allocated the flats and will occupy them with tenants according to its own rules.

DBČS will get the ownership of the flats for its own money to the extent of half of the floor area of all the flats. These are then to be operated under an affordable housing scheme at below market rents. A representative of DBČS said today that the company has about 700 apartments built in this style in the Czech Republic. Of the total investment of CZK 630 million, DBČS will give CZK 200 million for the construction. The rest will be paid by the town hall and the municipality.

"We have applied for a building permit for the construction of affordable housing in Broumarska Street opposite the pond, where we will build about 45 cooperative flats," Zajac said. The town hall has already found partners with whom it has set up a cooperative, with each participant owning a third of it.

Prague has long struggled with a shortage of apartments. Therefore, the municipality is also planning to build houses with affordable housing. "Every flat counts. Several other projects are on the way. We are also talking about not having to build from scratch, but looking around the market at developers and jointly buying some projects so that the housing is available right away," said Deputy Mayor Alexandra Udženija (ODS).

In total, including those managed by the city districts, the municipality owns about 30,000 flats out of the original 194,000 that came into the city's ownership after 1991. Privatisations followed, which reduced the city's stock by more than 80 percent.

Source: CTK