Advertising in Prague: Billboards violate regulations, the city will check them
According to the approved material based on information from the Municipal Institute of Planning and Development (IPR) is in violation of regulations a large part of the more than a thousand billboards on urban land. TSK will now, in cooperation with the municipality, process the results of all areas, variants of possible solutions and economic and legal analysis. According to the previous statements, the city must take into account, in addition to the so-called visual smog, also the economic side of things and the revenues from the rental of advertising space in the city budget.
Deputy Mayor Adam Scheinherr (Prague to himself) said that according to preliminary analyzes, there are about 4,746 of these areas in Prague, of which 1,555 are on municipal land. Some surfaces are double-sided, so there are 1060 carriers. According to the deputy, most of them violate building regulations. According to him, the city will prepare a model for the further functioning of this type of advertising and decide whether it will only rent land remotely or even build its own media. “Economic analysis will tell us how many areas are ideal for price / area,” he added. In 2018, according to him, Prague earned 50 million crowns for the lease of land.
The city wants to negotiate the model with stakeholders. “My task is to create a working group with representatives of city districts, building authorities and operators themselves“The deputy said. Compliance with building regulations in metropolises is monitored by building authorities, which fall under state administration, not self-government. According to Scheinherr, self-government must not be established for their interpretation. “It’s about setting up a clear methodology for building authorities,” he said.
“An unfortunate solution”
JCDecaux, which operates advertising space in the metropolis, does not like the procedure, even though it is aware of the problem with building regulations, according to its media representative Jiří Chvojka. “However, the possible termination of current contracts (even for carriers that are not in conflict) without a solid discussion with tenants on this topic seems to be an unfortunate solution., “He told ČTK earlier. “It is still not clear what advertising spaces should actually look like in metropolises. It would like a regular discussion with both companies in the field and with architects, and to work out a strategy that will pay for all types of advertising, “he added. He also criticized the fact that they would be limited to billboards and not to other types of advertising space, which are also in conflict with building regulations.
Representatives of companies operating advertising posters, which are affected by another, already approved restriction, which came into force in October, argued similarly. According to him, the ban on advertising sails, which was still valid only in monument reserves, has spread to a much larger part of the metropolis. According to the representatives of the companies that run this advertisement, this means discrimination against other types of media and cities for a similar step, there was no legal basis. The Association of Czech Outdoor Advertising Companies (SČVR), which is protected by the sail operator, turned to the Antimonopoly Office for this. According to earlier information from the association, he found in the investigation the reason that the municipality regulates interfering in free competitions. Spokesman Martin Švanda previously said that the office is not conducting administrative proceedings in this matter, but is communicating with the city management on the topic of outdoor advertising.
Advertising in Prague.
Author: MHMP