The fate of Transgas will probably not be decided before the elections

Prague - The Ministry of Culture (MK) will probably not decide on monument protection before the elections, and thus on the future of the Transgas building complex in Prague on Vinohradská Street. The owner wants to demolish them and build new houses in their place. Last year, the ministry refused to declare the buildings from the 1970s as a monument, and Minister Daniel Herman (KDU-ČSL) began to review the decision of his officials in the spring. Recently, he stated in the media that the buildings will probably become monuments. The investor does not like this at a time when a decision has not been made and wants to negotiate with Herman, as stated in an open letter.

On September 20, the minister rejected the investor's objection, the review process continues, and its outcome is more a matter of months than weeks, the MK spokesperson told ČTK. According to the law, the owner of the buildings must behave as if they had already been declared a monument since the start of the review process in May.

The representative of the investor, the company HB Reavis, Jakub Verner, told ČTK at that time that the investor sees the review as only a verification of whether there was a procedural error. If it were otherwise, he is ready to defend himself in court. According to him, any resulting damages have already exceeded half a billion crowns.

The investor filed a complaint against the initiation of the review, which the minister has now rejected. "In this decision, he primarily dealt with the resolution of procedural objections, that is, whether the review process was initiated in the legally prescribed time frame," said the spokesperson. According to her, for the review, the MK will request the expert opinion of the General Directorate of the National Heritage Institute (NPÚ). The owner will receive it and will be able to comment on it "within a reasonable time frame."

When the MK dealt with the proposal for declaring the buildings a monument last year, the NPÚ, through its office in Prague, did not recommend the declaration. It stated that "the area does not create an urban environment and materially and in scale damages the environment of the urban heritage zone." The MK then did not declare them as monuments. However, in the proposal to initiate the review, the General Directorate of the NPÚ supported the declaration of the area and wrote to the minister.

Shortly after the minister rejected the investor's complaint against the review process, he stated in the media that the review commission recommended that he reassess the office's approach, stating that Transgas needs to be preserved. "The building should thus become a cultural monument, which would prevent its demolition," quoted MFD Herman. The investor objected to such a statement.

"The fact that you publicly anticipate the conclusion of the entire process at this moment, without meeting the legal requirements for issuing a decision and collecting the required documents, raises serious doubts about the impartiality of your decision-making," wrote Petr Herman, the director of the Czech branch of HB Reavis, in an open letter. He stated that the minister's actions force the investor to defend himself in the arbitration chamber in Stockholm. "As a result, your words could cost taxpayers a billion crowns," he stated.

The review process leads to the issuance of a new decision, either stopping the process, which will keep the original MK decision of non-declaration as a monument in effect, or the original decision is revoked and the matter is returned to the ministry for further proceedings.