Prague, July 19 (CTK) – Prague’s new metropolitan plan is to enable the construction of more high-rise buildings, including in 14 new localities, and allow for adding more storeys to houses along the main streets, which has met with protests of experts.
The plan has been completed by the City Hall’s Institute of Planning and Development (IPR). If approved by the City Assembly, it is to take effect as of 2020.
“Instead of seeking to suppress the construction of high-rise buildings in Prague, the plan offers 14 new localities directly designated for such construction. The plan also confirms some [previously launched] disputable projects and it even targets localities in the city’s central panorama,” the Club for Old Prague has written.
Petra Kolinska (Greens), Prague deputy mayor for urban development, said the plan fails to set adequate limits for a new construction.
IPR spokesman Adam Svejda said the critics misinterpret the plan.
“At present, high-rise buildings can mushroom randomly, no complex regulation of such construction exists. The metropolitan plan is the first document to introduce regulation for the whole area of Prague. The construction of higher than 12-storey buildings…will be banned on 99.4 percent of Prague’s area,” IPR director Petr Hlavacek has told CTK.
At present, high-rise buildings stand mainly in the Pankrac neighbourhood, the broader centre of Prague on the right bank of the Vltava River.
The highest of them is the 27-storey 109-metre-high skyscraper City Tower.
The Metropolitan plan outlines further neighbourhoods where skyscrapers may be built. According to Svejda, these sites are not new in this respect, as some high-rise buildings stand at most of them already.
“He who proposes the building of skyscrapers should tell how they contribute to the quality of life and the protection of the values offered by Prague, and how the city would cope with the increased burden, mainly in terms of transport,” Kolinska has told CTK.
The Club for Old Prague is opposed to a possible raising of houses along the main streets by another two to four floors.
“Such extension is possible even now, no regulation bans it,” Svejda said, adding that the plan does not count with the construction of further floors but only spires and bay windows.
“Corner spires are an element typical of Prague. We did not want to eliminate it by an excessive regulation of the high-rise construction,” Svejda said.
