The public discussion of the urban plan for Liberec will be in September at the earliest

Liberec - The preparation of the new zoning plan for Liberec has experienced further delays. Mayor Jaroslav Zámečník (SLK) expects that the new public discussion will take place no earlier than this September, and the council will receive the new zoning plan for approval no sooner than mid-2021. The opposition group LOL criticizes the city leadership for preparing the proposal. According to them, the city is keeping it secret from the public and is also refusing to accept objections signed by thousands of people.

"In many cases, the proposed plan is the exact opposite of what the citizens suggested," said the leader of LOL and Liberec councilor Jaromír Baxa to reporters. He cited the industrial zone next to the airport in Ostašov, against which locals are protesting. Residents of Vesec and Doubí are also displeased with the transfer of so-called mixed areas to industrial land, where there are already companies that disturb the surrounding area with unpleasant odors.

The mayor rejects the opposition's objections. He claims to adhere to the zoning plan proposed by the previous city leadership. "It is fundamentally no different from what was proposed in 2018. Only cosmetically here and there have we acknowledged that we might lean towards an objection and accommodate it," stated the mayor.

The current leadership does not intend to make fundamental changes to the proposed zoning plan. Zámečník explained that doing so would prolong the approval process, and there isn't much time left. The validity of the current zoning plan will expire in 2022. The creation of a new plan, which should address the development of the fifth largest city in the country over the next 20 to 30 years, has been underway since 2007. The anticipated approval date has already been postponed several times. The city has received about 3,300 objections regarding the proposal so far. Of these, roughly 600 are from the last public discussion in June 2018, and the mayor proposes to accept about 30 of them. "They have, to put it mildly, a certain cosmetic and minor corrective character regarding the original zoning plan," he added.

The mayor also denies that the city leadership is keeping anything secret. According to him, anyone who submitted an objection can come to him and ask how it was handled. He claims that all council members also have access to this information. The public will be able to familiarize themselves with it no later than 45 days before the repeated public discussion when the new zoning plan proposal is finished.

However, Baxa insists that the city should also make the working version available and simply state that it is not the final version. He rejects the city's argument that they do not want to mislead anyone. "It's just a smokescreen because they don't want anyone to poke around in it," he added.