Entrepreneurs are displeased with the new building law; it is said to worsen the situation

Prague - Businesspeople are unhappy with the current draft of the new construction law. According to them, after incorporating feedback, it deviated from its original form and will significantly worsen the situation in construction instead of simplifying it. This was stated by representatives of business chambers and associations at today's press conference. According to the Ministry for Regional Development (MMR), the current version of the draft, which will be presented to the public on Tuesday, is a compromise that will accelerate building permits.

The existing version of the proposal, according to the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Vladimír Dlouhý, has almost nothing in common with the substantive intent and draft presented at the end of last year before the comment procedure. He claimed that their resolution followed a so-called "salami method." "Thus, the building law has become just a poorly conceived partial amendment, which will significantly worsen the situation in construction," he stated. He also rejected that the current draft had been discussed with the chamber. Without a revision, he proposes to reject this draft.

Other unions also critically evaluate the revision of the construction law proposal. Jiří Nouza from the Union of Construction Entrepreneurs stated that it is more of an amendment to the existing law and will complicate the situation in construction even more. Therefore, he proposes to revert to the original form and incorporate only some of the comments.

According to the Union of Industry and Transport, the proposal reflects the inability of representatives of the public sector and the government to clearly agree, leaving individual competencies fragmented. An example, according to the union, is water management proceedings, which allegedly will not be integrated, and the possibility of combining it with building permits is to be excluded compared to today. "We are disappointed that the originally announced integration of all agendas and the simplification of permitting processes is still not taking place," stated vice president of the union František Chaloupecký.

MMR describes the final form of the proposal as a compromise between the interests of builders and public interests. Nevertheless, the law is expected to significantly speed up the slow process of building permitting. "The current state will thus improve one hundred percent," stated the ministry. According to the office, processes for building permits should now take a matter of weeks, or at most months, instead of the current several years.

According to the ministry, the new version of the proposal aims to create pressure for compliance with deadlines through the fiction of consent or measures against the inactivity of the building authority. It will also lead to a reduction in construction and affected authorities or an appellate principle, in which a superior authority will have to decide directly on the matter rather than just sending it back for discussion to a lower instance as is done now.

The original draft of the regulation also faced many critics. Among the most common complaints was that it favored developers and did not protect public interests. The law is expected to come into effect at the beginning of next year, gradually becoming effective by mid-2023.