Praha councilors postponed the selection procedure for the director of IPR

Prague - The Prague councilors today postponed the announcement of a tender for the position of director of the Institute of Planning and Development (IPR). The reason is the incompleteness of the material presented to them. This was stated to reporters by Deputy Mayor Petr Dolínek (ČSSD). The institute is a contributory organization of Prague and has been without a director since September when the councilors dismissed him. Currently, the IPR is led by Deputy Director Ondřej Boháč. IPR is a contributory organization of the capital city responsible for, among other things, urban planning.

"The material was not sufficiently prepared for discussion," Dolínek said. He did not say when it might be ready and when the tender for a new director could possibly be announced. He also did not specify what exactly the councilors found objectionable in the prepared material.

In September, the leadership of Prague dismissed IPR director architect Petr Hlaváček. Since then, there has been talk in the corridors about a crisis at the IPR. Following Hlaváček's departure, the members of the team that was preparing the metropolitan plan submitted their resignations - its preparation is now nearly at a standstill. Prague, together with the IPR leadership, must therefore find not only a new director but also a leader and members of this team. According to information from ČTK, the city leadership tried to contact Irena Králová, the planner of the territorial plan for Plzeň, but unsuccessfully.

According to the IPR website, Prague has had an institution dealing with urban planning since 1920 when the State Regulatory Commission for Prague and its surroundings was established. From 1961 to 1994, there was the so-called Office of the Chief Architect, which was succeeded by the City Development Office. This was transformed into the current IPR in 2014, which is tasked with, among other things, preparing a new territorial plan and planning the city's development. Its annual budget is approximately 300 million crowns.