The new building law has not taken work away from people or offices

Pardubice - The new building law has apparently not made the preparation of construction easier for individual builders or the authorities. According to the contacted building authorities in the Pardubice region, small investors must provide the same amount of opinions and approvals as before before constructing a family house. Additionally, officials sometimes do not know how to apply the law. Vlastimil Moucha, the head of the Czech Chamber of Authorized Engineers and Technicians in the Pardubice region, told CTK today that it will be necessary to amend the entire law.
   Minister for Regional Development Jiří Čunek, whose department oversees the law, expressed last week that he agrees with the amendment of the law.
   The building law has been in effect since January. It was supposed to simplify administration, especially for small investors. It expanded the list of constructions for which only a notification to the building authority is needed instead of a building permit. People should be able to build a family house of up to 150 square meters and three above-ground floors based only on notification. For many smaller constructions, even notification is not necessary. However, the building authorities see it differently.
   "The law was probably conceived to make things easier for builders in certain cases. However, our experiences with it so far have not been very positive. In most respects, it is generally the same as before; some forms are even more complicated now. Opinions still have to be provided, in that respect, almost nothing has been simplified," said Petr Marčík, head of the construction department at the Orlickoústecká City Hall. The number of required permits and opinions for a typical family house still reaches ten to twenty.
   Jiří Vopršal, head of the building authority in Pardubice, speaks even more sharply. "It has deteriorated significantly; it has definitely not been simplified. This is an unresolved collapse issue; no one is methodically leading the implementation of the law, and the Ministry for Regional Development still has not provided any opinions on it; some paragraphs are impossible to implement and contradict each other," Vopršal told CTK. According to him, builders and authorities are "improvising on the go," and the builder still must go through some form of territorial procedure with all permits and opinions. "It does not make it easier for him or for the authority. The Chamber of Architects and Engineers evaluates it in such a way that the entire system must crash within six months," Vopršal believes.
   The Czech Chamber of Authorized Engineers and Technicians wants to amend the law. "There has been a certain shift for the better; however, we have an enormous amount of reservations. We will gradually comment on the law and initiate an amendment," Moucha told CTK.
   Minister for Regional Development Jiří Čunek also agrees with the amendment. According to him, some provisions of the new building law prolong the issuance of building permits and could complicate drawing funds from the European Union. He plans to propose changes to lawmakers in an expedited procedure. The amendment could then take effect by the end of this year.
   "It's a matter that has gone very wrong," evaluated the law that passed under the previous government of the ČSSD, KDU-ČSL, and the Union of Freedom, the Christian Democratic Party leader Čunek. According to the information that the Ministry for Regional Development has received from building authorities, this year there are two-thirds fewer building permits than before the new law came into effect.