Snake spas remain a monument, the court decided

Prague/Teplice – The Snake Baths in Teplice remain a cultural monument. The Municipal Court in Prague on Monday rejected the owner's lawsuit against the decision of the Minister of Culture Lubomír Zaorálek (ČSSD), which confirmed that the heritage protection of the baths will continue. This was announced today by the spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture, Michaela Lagronová. The company Treinvest, which owns the baths, can still file a cassation complaint against the ruling, which would then be decided by the Supreme Administrative Court.

Zaorálek definitively confirmed the heritage protection of the Snake Baths this February. He once again overturned the decision of his predecessor Antonín Staněk, who, shortly before leaving office last year, removed the status of a cultural monument from the deteriorating Neoclassical building located in the heritage zone of the spa town. According to some media, he thus accommodated the owner of the baths, Jaroslav Třešňák, who was among the biggest sponsors of Miloš Zeman's second presidential campaign, otherwise known as Staněk's biggest supporter in the political scene.

Třešňák originally planned to renovate the building and operate a spa there. However, the restoration proposals were rejected by the heritage preservationists, as they considered them to essentially involve demolishing the building and constructing a new one.

Třešňák offered the building to the city for 18 million crowns. The councilors approved the intent to purchase the property last December for a price according to the expert valuation, which was 6.8 million crowns. "We want to save the spa; now the ball is in Mr. Třešňák's court, who bought it years ago for five million crowns," said then Mayor Hynek Hanza (ODS). "Officially, he has not negotiated with us since then; however, he mentioned that he does not want to sell it, yet he is doing nothing with it," Hanza told ČTK today.

Třešňák had already proposed a plan for how to repair the building, but it was rejected by the heritage preservationists. "The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. It is a single-purpose building, and making something of it while meeting all the demands of the heritage preservationists is complicated. The fact that the building remains a cultural monument unfortunately most likely means that its fate is sealed and the heritage protection will lead it to ruin," Hanza stated.

Staněk's decision to remove the heritage protection from the baths was reviewed by Zaorálek shortly after his appointment to office last autumn, and he decided to restore the protection. The owner of the baths appealed against him. It is not possible to appeal against the minister’s decision as a second-instance body; the owner then filed a lawsuit.

The court has now rejected the claims of the lawsuit, instead agreeing with the argumentation of the Minister of Culture, particularly agreeing that the heritage zone where the Snake Baths are located does not provide sufficient protection for the heritage values of this object. At the same time, in this case, there are no extraordinarily serious reasons, according to the heritage law, to revoke the declaration of the Snake Baths as a cultural monument, Lagronová stated.

The city estimated the total repair costs for the Snake Baths at approximately 20 million crowns. The Neoclassical building has been a cultural monument since 1958, having ceased to serve its original purpose after several conversions at the turn of the millennium.