The building permit for the D metro line has been upheld by the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC). It rejected the cassation complaints of the Pankrácká company and a man from Kovařovicova Street in Prague 4, who had earlier unsuccessfully challenged the building permit at the Municipal Court in Prague. The decision of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) is temporarily available on the official notice board and the Prague City Hall welcomed it, according to Deputy Mayor Zdeněk Hřibo (Piráti), as did the director of the transport company (DPP) Petr Witowski. The dispute concerned the operational section from Pankrác to Nové Dvory. The construction has already started and the Prague City Council has given its permission in June 2021.
The opponents of the construction pointed out in the cassation complaint, for example, the alleged systemic bias of the municipality’s officials with regard to the statements of Prague politicians. “The complainants have neither proved nor alleged that the officials were pressured by the city administration to make decisions contrary to professional (binding) opinions or on the basis of incomplete construction documentation. The content of the file does not show any such evidence,” the judgment reads.
Other objections concerned, for example, the placement of a pile wall at an apartment building in Kovařovicova Street or the alleged commencement of construction before the building permit was issued. According to the judgment, the complainants should have raised their objections to the pile wall in the construction procedure. As regards the second objection, the administrative court stated that it was the geological survey that was at issue, not the construction itself.
The respondents to the construction initially brought an action before the Regional Court in Ostrava, which has a specialised chamber for the most important projects built under the Linear Law. However, the SJC has previously concluded that the metro is not one of those projects. The claim was thus heard and dismissed by the administrative section of the Municipal Court in Prague.
“Of course, we welcome the court’s decision. We are gradually succeeding in breaking down all the bureaucratic obstacles that are getting in the way of this currently largest transport investment worth tens of billions, launched in the last parliamentary term,” Hřib said today in response to the SAC’s decision.
According to DPP director Witowski, the company was convinced from the beginning that all the legislative processes for the building permit were in order. “I am pleased that the Supreme Court has now confirmed this. The last risk has been overlooked and we can continue the construction of the first section of Pankrác – Olbrachtova and I firmly believe that soon the second section will follow,” he said.
The blue metro line D should connect Písnice with Míru Square and relieve traffic in the south of the capital. The preparation of the construction has been plagued by a number of problems and disputes. A one-kilometre section between Pankrác and Olbrachtova stations is currently under construction, which is the most complicated due to the construction of a transfer node on line C. The transport company was counting on the construction of another section from Olbrachtova to Nové Dvory this October.
However, the Antimonopoly Office cancelled the tender for the second part of the route. The appeal against the decision, filed by the Prague transport company, is now to be heard by the authority’s chairman, Petr Mlsna.
Source: CTK
