The new zoning plan for Liberec will most likely be approved in 2021

Liberec - The new land use plan for Liberec is expected to be approved only in 2021. The city hall, according to the new mayor Jaroslav Zámečník (Mayors for the Liberec Region), must first evaluate 3,300 objections received. "The resolution will take some time," said the mayor, who, as an appointed representative, is responsible for preparing the new land use plan.

Zámečník expects that the resolution of objections will occupy the city for the upcoming months. Liberec received 600 objections from this year's discussion of the land use plan and another 2,700 from previous years. "The assumption is that a repeated public discussion will take place at the turn of 2019 and 2020," added the mayor.

The validity of the current land use plan will expire in 2022. The city hall has been working on creating a new one, which should address the development of the fifth largest city in the country for the next 20 to 30 years, since 2007. The expected approval date has already been postponed several times. The delay in issuing the new land use plan complicates the city's development, as only so-called strategic changes can be made during its preparation. According to the original schedule, the new land use plan was supposed to be approved by 2015. Even an approval in 2021 is considered by Zámečník to be an optimistic variant.

Former deputy and now opposition representative Karolína Hrbková (Change for Liberec) has long warned of possible problems in the proposed form of the land use plan. "The process of guidelines for the last public discussion of the land use plan was not completely in order. And there is likely a risk of legal challenges to the land use plan after its issuance," she said. She considers it correct to annul all 207 guidelines issued by former mayor Tibor Batthyány (former ANO) for this year's public discussion of the land use plan. According to her, they are misleading, sometimes contradictory, and contain formal errors. Zámečník wants to familiarize himself with these guidelines soon. "I will proceed in accordance with the law," he added.

Residents of Ostašov, for example, intend to appeal to the court. They are not pleased that a meadow with high-quality arable soil near the airport is to become an industrial zone. Nearly 2,000 people have expressed opposition to the use of this area for industry in a petition.