The proposal for the zoning plan received around 600 objections in Liberec

Liberec - The proposal for a new zoning plan has received around 600 objections and comments in Liberec. Their evaluation will likely continue until the end of this year. This was stated today by the city hall spokeswoman Jana Kodymová. The city hall has been working on creating a zoning plan, which should address the development of the city with a population of 100,000 over the next 20 to 30 years, since 2007. The validity of the current plan will end in 2020.

"The evaluation means an initial opinion on how the objection will be handled - accepted, not accepted, partially accepted. It is not a written proposal for a decision on the objection, which has to be written later,” Kodymová stated.

According to the original schedule, the new zoning plan was supposed to be approved three years ago. However, the city hall leadership that emerged from the municipal elections in 2014 decided to revise the previous proposal with the goal of approving it by the end of June 2017 at the latest. However, they failed to achieve this, and the preparation is further delayed, with October or November 2020 now seeming like a realistic approval date.

According to Kodymová, in addition to the 600 newly received objections and comments, city representatives will also have to revisit 2,700 previous suggestions to ensure they correspond to the current state. "It is expected that the work on the zoning plan in 2019 will only relate to this activity," she added.

The delay in issuing the new zoning plan complicates the city's development, which was recently acknowledged by Mayor Tibor Batthyány (former ANO), who is responsible for its preparation. "It is a problem for potential investors or people who want to move in and build, but the zoning plan does not allow it," he told ČTK a few weeks ago. When preparing a new zoning plan, only so-called strategic changes can be made.

The mayor also faces criticism regarding the proposed form of the zoning plan. Residents in Ostašov even want to turn to the court. They dislike that a meadow with quality arable land near the airport should become an industrial zone. Nearly 2,000 people expressed their opposition to using this area for industry in a petition. Locals argue that with the current low employment, another factory is not needed. A private company aims to use seven hectares for production and development, which could create up to 200 jobs.