Liberec has completed the proposal for a new zoning plan, which will be approved in February

Liberec – Liberec has completed the draft of a new zoning plan after almost 15 years. The costs of its creation, including salaries, have amounted to approximately 40 million crowns during that time. Representatives will approve the new zoning plan at the end of February. The mayor, Jaroslav Zámečník, said this to journalists today.

"The zoning plan anticipates that Liberec should have a projected 110,000 inhabitants," he said. Currently, the fifth largest city in the country has about 6,000 fewer. According to the mayor, the new plan includes the completion of the inner city ring road and the construction of up to 10,500 apartments, including houses, but it should not be randomly located in the open landscape. "We are often criticized for the zoning plan causing sprawl into the countryside. I assess it as the zoning plan (the draft of the new one) limiting this sprawl into the countryside,” said Zámečník. The draft also incorporates a green system, known as green belts, proposed by the previous city leadership. According to the mayor, greenery occupies about 48 percent of the 102 km² of Liberec.

The creation of the zoning plan, which should regulate the development of the regional city in the next 20 to 30 years, has been in progress since 2007. The way it has been prepared has been long criticized by the opposition. Opposition councillor Jaromír Baxa (LOL) is pleased, on one hand, that it is nearing completion, but on the other hand, he considers the current draft conceptually outdated, non-modern, and in several parts of the city, it worsens the living environment for residents. "It is based on a long outdated idea that the city develops by building new roads and occupying new areas. Today, however, we know that this approach only leads to an increasing use of cars and distances people from the possibility of resting in nature. Not to mention the ecological impacts," Baxa stated.

Throughout the entire process of creating the new zoning plan, the city hall received over 3,500 objections and comments. The mayor previously stated that only about five percent of them were addressed, which did not significantly affect the outcome. The current leadership did not want to make more significant changes to the proposal created by the previous city leadership precisely to allow the new zoning plan to be accepted as quickly as possible. The opposition also criticizes this approach.