Praha will not expand beyond its borders; construction will take place within

Prague - The capital city of Prague will no longer expand beyond its current borders. Construction should take place within so-called brownfields or development areas. The city can accommodate up to another 432,000 people on available spaces. This is based on the first documents for the new urban (metropolitan) plan for Prague, which is being prepared by the Institute of Planning and Development (IPR). Mayor Tomáš Hudeček (TOP 09) and IPR architect Roman Koucký told journalists this today. The metropolitan plan is expected to be approved in 2017.
    "Our goal is to close the city, or rather, stop further expansion, which is no longer economically viable," said Hudeček.
    According to IPR's calculations, the areas within the city where construction can take place, namely the so-called development areas, could accommodate up to 432,000 residents if houses are built. Currently, the population density in Prague is 56 people per hectare of built-up land, but the city starts to function economically at a concentration of about 100 residents per hectare. "That is such a low number that Prague should already be bankrupt," said Koucký. There are currently about 7,660 hectares of development and transformation areas in Prague, with IPR counting only plots larger than 30 hectares, and also not counting the area of the airport in Ruzyně.
    The new urban plan will follow several rules. Among them is the non-expansiveness of Prague's borders, meaning the city will not expand "into fields." There will be definitions for buildable and non-buildable areas, as well as definitions for what is public and what is private, which will address public spaces such as streets or squares. There will also be height regulation rules in place. The currently published materials also state that up to 300,000 people have a park more than 1.5 kilometers away from their residence.
    The metropolitan plan aims to address Prague as a whole, not as individual small areas. The capital consists of 57 districts and 22 administrative areas. The new urban plan is intended to replace the plan approved in 2000. In contrast to the old plan, it differentiates urban locations. These identify specific areas and places within the districts that are protected from insensitive development. For example, if an area is characterized as villa construction, high-rises cannot be built there.
    A second feature of the new plan is that it will be layered. The old plan strictly defined what could be built on a given plot. The new plan does not do this; it only characterizes the permissible load for the designated area. The city also anticipates that a more detailed urban plan will be developed for selected locations. According to IPR estimates, the metropolitan plan should be approved in 2017.