The Heritage Council wants to repeat its comments on the construction law

Prague - The Czech branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) wants the interdepartmental comment procedure on the new building law to be repeated. According to them, the Ministry of Regional Development (MMR) has chosen a non-transparent strategy for addressing comments and sends versions of the draft law that differ significantly in content. This was stated today in a press release by the Czech National Committee of ICOMOS. The MMR, which in recent days has also been criticized by Ombudsman Stanislav Křeček regarding the preparation of the law, previously stated that the deadline for addressing comments is sufficient. Today, it added that the Ministry of Culture is its partner in negotiations.

"We demand, in accordance with the legislative rules of the government, to repeat the interdepartmental comment procedure, in which a report summarizing the main changes compared to the version of the law from November 2019 will also be available," stated Petr Svoboda, authorized to represent the Czech National Committee of ICOMOS in the comment procedure. The monument council wants the comments on the law to be resolved as a whole, "not piece by piece and in fragments, as it has been so far," he said.

"The Ministry of Regional Development is fragmenting the law and presenting it to the commenting bodies in a calculated way so that it is not possible to formulate meaningful responses. It sets extremely short deadlines for this," stated Václav Girsa, president of Czech ICOMOS.

The Ministry of Regional Development stated today that ICOMOS is not a commenting body. "Our partner is the Ministry of Culture, with which we are continuously negotiating about the building law and will continue to do so. We also want to ask ICOMOS to stop alarming the public with false claims that the interests of heritage protection and the Ministry of Culture will not be safeguarded in the new law. By these statements, the organization also calls into question the role of the Ministry of Culture, which is responsible for the protection of monuments," further stated the MMR.

ICOMOS has repeatedly criticized the preparation of the building law, which is intended primarily to speed up the building process, according to the proposer. The National Heritage Institute and the Ministry of Culture also have objections to the proposal. They are particularly concerned about the effort to integrate the issue of protective monument zones into the responsibility of building authorities. The zones are parts of cities or municipalities that are adjacent to heritage reserves or heritage zones. They do not have such strict rules from the perspective of heritage protection, which is why they are often the target of developers' interest. However, experts believe that heritage conservators should continue to have influence over construction in these areas.

"The fact is, heritage protection under the building authority will no longer be independent and binding. A specific heritage conservator will be subordinate to someone who has no knowledge of handling monuments. That person will be able to impose binding orders on the conservator but will also be able to influence them, for example, through remuneration. Unfortunately, this resembles a return to before 1989, perhaps even much further back," stated Girsa.

According to him, due to the proposed change, conservators will not be able to intervene decisively in construction activities in the immediate vicinity of the most significant cultural monuments listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which constitutes a serious violation of the Czech Republic’s international commitments.

"Conservators will continue to defend the public interest within the building authority, which will issue coordinated statements for each project, and the building authority will be obliged to reflect this interest in its decisions. For cultural and national monuments and heritage reserves, the heritage authority will continue to have an independent position, and its opinion will be binding for the building authority," added the ministry.