Two thousand five hundred people commented on the South Moravian Principles of the UR

Brno - More than 2500 people from nearly a hundred municipalities in the South Moravian Region have signed a joint statement regarding the proposed principles of land use development (ZÚR) for the South Moravian Region. They are dissatisfied with the proposed solution for road infrastructure, which brings main traffic flows into the Brno metropolitan area but does not address transportation within it. Potential constructions are merely left as land reserves, and the region plans to deal with them only after the ZÚR is issued, which will be no earlier than next year before the autumn regional elections. Petr Firbas, who, along with Jana Pálková, is an authorized representative of the public that signed the comments, stated this to ČTK today.
    Comments could be submitted until May 7. Now the region must respond to all of them according to the law. "The region must invite us to address the comments. We will see how they approach this. In the past, the region's transparency in preparing the ZÚR was poor," said Firbas. The region is creating a new ZÚR because the previous one was annulled by the Supreme Administrative Court in 2012, and the South Moravian Region is thus the only one in the republic that has not had a valid land use planning document since its establishment 15 years ago.
    Currently, the region is trying to be more open and has presented proposals gradually to all mayors, but it will only address comments now. Once they are addressed, a document will be created that must be approved again by the council and will go through a second round of commenting. "Until now, they have always chosen the path of not listening to citizens and repeatedly made mistakes that led them to court. And they lost every time," Firbas noted.
    The comments were jointly submitted by municipalities that are concerned about key transportation constructions, for which a satisfactory solution has yet to be found. This includes the D43 highway from Brno to Moravská Třebová, R52 from Pohořelice to Mikulov, and a potential connector between the D1 and D2 highways. "The regional proposal brings all transit traffic into Brno and does not solve what to do with it afterward. Even now, some areas in Brno and its surroundings are exceeding noise and dust limit levels. That is why we are so vocally opposing the ZÚR," Firbas stated.
    Regional councilor Antonín Tesařík (KDU-ČSL) defends the position that the management of roads in Brno is a matter of the city's land use plan, which is opposed by Deputy Mayor Martin Ander (SZ). He claims that the city cannot plan road corridors of supra-local significance without an existing regional land use plan.
    Pálková is also a member of the petition committee advocating for the R43 to run as a bypass for Brno through the Boskovická basin; the petition already has 38,000 signatures. Firbas has long been engaged in a concept that would divert transit traffic away from Brno. "It is true that 85% of passenger cars have a destination in Brno, as the region argues. But 70% of freight traffic is transit, and it needs to be diverted from Brno. Such a solution would also be 50 billion cheaper according to authorized studies," Firbas stated.
    In the region, due to the lack of land use development principles, not a single kilometer of highways or expressways has been built since 2007, and it has not been possible to prepare project documentation either.