There is a construction boom in Prague, but apartment prices are still rising, says Hřib
In three and a half years, the municipality invested a total of 32.9 billion crowns in the development of Prague. This is more than what the former coalition led by Adriana Krnáčová (ANO) was able to do, but you set out to invest up to twice as much as you ended up spending. Why was the result worse?
Two completely unprecedented crises, the Covid crisis and then the refugee crisis, deprived Prague of money. It wasn’t just direct costs. Revenues affect budgets as well as a tax package or recession. Nevertheless, we invest more than the previous political representation. People only see figures in the city budget, which do not include, for example, the investment activities of the transport company or the Prague Water Management Company, which have also changed over the years.
The city is undergoing record development. We have the most permitted apartments in commercial development, almost ten thousand. This is a record since 1989. There are also three new bridges over the Vltava, the Trojská lávka is standing and we will start the construction of the Dvorecký bridge very soon. We also presented the winning design for the Vltava Philharmonic. You argue that it is not initiated. But this is simply about the fact that we need to have some kind of plan for future years. We are working on the availability of housing, projects for eight thousand city apartments are ready.
Last year, 9,700 apartments were approved in Prague. On the other hand, according to the developers, the number of apartments waiting for permission has accumulated. There are up to 134 thousand of them. Why can’t they allow more of them?
I don’t know what stadium the permit process is for these apartments. I’m not sure if applications are made in all cases. I think that the developers include all projects, including those that are currently subject to changes in the zoning plan. And in this regard, we accelerated the plan changes in record time. We took all the things out of the drawers that no one had even touched for, say, seven years.
At the same time, we put a “stop” on changes to the spatial plan, because we have to prepare the Metropolitan Plan. It would not be possible to do this if new and new requirements were constantly added. They could therefore accumulate.
You claim that you are speeding up the preparation of construction, but you know that you are the average Prague citizen who voted for you four years ago with the vision that you will increase the availability of housing. What do you think about the fact that the capital has the largest housing shortage in history?
It is absolutely clear that we have reached the highest speed of building permits. At the same time, however, it became clear that simply increasing the speed of permitting apartments in the development is clearly not a commercial self-sustaining solution. This has been repeatedly claimed. But let’s be clear that this is not the only thing that needs to be done. The premise that just build quickly and prices will go down is false. We have a record number of housing permits, but their prices are rising. This is because it is not affected by the demand side in any way. That is, if a speculator from the post-Soviet republic, for example, buys an apartment, and what he will then use it for.
But the city can influence the supply, for example, by lowering rental housing prices.
What needs to be added to that mix is massive construction of urban rental housing. In this way, we are able to complete the housing policy of the city. We can influence who we rent to. They can be professions necessary for Prague, such as teachers, doctors, nurses.
But your coalition has already been in charge of Prague for four years. How are you going to get the required number of townhouses as quickly as possible? do you have any plan
There are several options to ensure the expansion of the housing stock. We founded the Prague Development Company, which has projects for the eight thousand city apartments. As for the problems that hindered housing construction, they are well known. Prague did not have more plots of land because the previous political representatives sold them off, often under very dubious circumstances.
That is why we are trying to acquire land in the form of an exchange with the state. For example, we are giving the state real estate in Bulovka, for which we are supposed to receive land precisely for the construction of municipal rental apartments. another solution for obtaining parcels is changes in the zoning plan, for example in Letňany.
In your program, you write that you have housed seventeen households with the help of the city’s rental agency. Is not it too little?
There are already twenty-six of them. Last week, we approved that the continued operation of the agency will be ensured. We have to have a mix of solutions, they are starting gradually. In the horizon of several years, the rental agency is to acquire several apartments. I have to support myself personally, other people only talk about it.
We can speed up the repairs of existing city apartments even more, there is already an overview on the Internet that they are being repaired at a record pace. We give the districts money for that. It is not the case that Prague has thirty thousand apartments, they are spread between the municipality and the city district. Ours, which were repairable, are now rented, for example, for those preferred professions or for social cases.
The city needs more powers over the Airbnb platform. Why was it not possible to convince the parliament about the amendments to the laws? Airbnb has been in Prague for eight years, this topic already resonated in the last election campaign.
Something happened. We put together four principles, two of which have been implemented. An amendment is approved that allows us better access to information, it also gives platforms certain obligations. However, enforcement has become a problem. They are institutions based in Britain or Ireland and it is rather difficult to deliver parcels to them in the administrative order regime. However, the city districts, which are authorized to request information from the platforms, are somehow struggling with this.
The second thing was the greater use of the existing legislation, specifically for re-approvals. This means that it is approved as an apartment, it is automatically an accommodation service. I spoke about this with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which has issued a new methodology for labeling establishments. The Ministry of Regional Development has also issued binding guidelines for the assessment of this area. Now these rules are to be applied by the building authorities of the city districts.
Without financial help, he will not be able to manage the construction of the inner circuit of the state. Why does the city still negotiate with the government?
It is common to pay for large infrastructural constructions in foreign capitals. In our case, it is primarily about the metro and the city circuit. We used to receive some contributions on the metro, but unfortunately it has ended. At the same time, it is also a building that will definitely be used by people from other regions. However, with the current political representation at the national level, it is possible to find agreement rather that the state would prefer to finance the city circuit. We will only start building it in 2029, we will only now submit an application for a zoning decision. The question is who will run the Ministry of Transport and Finance in seven years.
The opposition often claims that you are a cyclocoalition. Over the past four years, many new cycle lanes have actually been created in the center at the expense of car lanes. It is alright like this?
In the document called the cycle transport development concept, which was already approved in 2010 under the then mayor Pavel Béma from ODS, the main goal is to increase the transport of passengers by bicycle in Prague to five to seven percent of the total transport capacity in summer and to two to three percent in winter . According to the concept, this should have been achieved by 2020. And now the transport capacity is around one percent.
Don’t you point to others too often?
Those who now claim that we are a cycling coalition have themselves voted for concept documents using for the further development of cycling. That is hypocrisy. At the moment, I don’t see any effort on the part of ODS and ANO to solve traffic in Prague in any meaningful way based on data, but only with the help of populist cries. If someone claims that traffic in Prague will be solved by deleting cycle lanes, it is not true.
The energy crisis is also affecting the campaign. Should Prague own 100% of Pražská energetika just as it fully controls Pražská plynárenská?
I see ownership of the distribution network as essential for the city. I do not consider it necessary to fully control PRE, i.e. its commercial part as well. Figuratively speaking, Prague should fully own not only the gas pipes, but also the wires through which electricity flows. I think energy should be focused on infrastructure issues.
Zdeněk Hřib (41)
- A native of the Zlín Region, he graduated from the 3rd Faculty of Medicine of the Charles University in Prague.
- Before entering politics, he was involved in the development of information systems in the healthcare sector and was a member of the board of directors of VZP.
- In 2018, he became the leader of the Pirate Party in the municipal elections in Prague, and as the party finished second in the elections, it won the mayor’s seat for Hřib.