Supervision over the development of technical infrastructure of cities and municipalities should be the main task of city engineers. The need for expertise is becoming increasingly relevant in the context of a number of measures, including the Communication from the Commission, The European Green Deal. And these place higher demands on a number of areas of operation of existing or construction of new settlements. That is also why the Czech Chamber of Authorized Engineers and Technicians Active in Construction is pushing for the position of “Urban Engineer” to become the rule in cities and municipalities.
The issue of establishing the role of an urban engineer has been addressed in professional circles for several years. While many cities already have their own urban architect, only a small fraction of the city and municipality employ their urban engineer. This is despite the fact that urban engineering, like urban urbanism among architects, is part of the study of civil engineering and the ČKAIT authorization system.
This wants to change the current leadership of the Chamber. Based on the October meeting of engineering chambers and associations of the Visegrad Four countries, it intends to open this issue with the new leadership of the Ministry of Regional Development of the Czech Republic. This is partly because it places significant demands on cities and municipalities in the field of technical infrastructure to transpose and implement a number of commitments related to the Commission’s Green Deal Communication.
The field of urban engineering supports the Green Deal strategy. This is done, for example, by rationally designing utility networks and other measures to better manage rainwater in the urban environment, increasing the share of retention areas and reservoirs in urban areas that help reduce rainwater runoff into sewers and reduce sewer congestion.
“The city engineer is not a competitor of the city architect, but his professional partner. The city engineer focuses on technical infrastructure issues. It is important from our point of view that technical issues will be addressed in the initial stages of urban studies and development projects of municipalities. This will lead to better feasibility, higher quality and investment protection,” explains Ing. Robert Špalek, Chairman of ČKAIT. He adds that the absence of a city engineer is typically shown by the example of the implementation of green roofs, which cannot be created on all buildings. Due to the load on the load-bearing structures and at the same time with regard to the need to solve the retention of rainwater on the builder’s land.
According to the Chamber, the municipal (construction) engineer should become part of the team of employees of the construction, investment development and spatial planning departments. It represents a comprehensive view of the solution of engineering networks (technical infrastructure) in urban development. As an institution in the public administration system (eg the department of a city engineer next to the department of a city architect) it can thus be set aside separately. It is mainly about the application of the professional perspective of urban engineering in solving the development of the city or seat.
The position of city engineer was not only usual during the First Republic, but is also standard in Western Europe and other developed countries. Also with the analysis of the best foreign examples, the ČKAIT management wants to reopen the role of the city engineer in current (or forthcoming) legal regulations. In this spirit, it is already preparing important steps towards political representation and legislators.
After all, the successful practice of a city engineer can already be found in selected Czech, Moravian and Silesian cities. “An expert with the qualification of a city engineer is represented, for example, at the Department of Construction in Ostrava or in the contributory organization of the statutory city of Ostrava MAPPA – City Studio of Spatial Planning and Architecture. It is the main conceptual workplace of Ostrava in the field of architecture, urban planning and city design. His task is to work on development and urban projects and cultivate public space in Ostrava,” adds Ing. František Kuda, CSc., Vice-Rector for Development and Investment Construction of the University of Mining – Technical University of Ostrava, who has been dealing with the issue of urban engineering at ČKAIT for a long time.
Source: ČKAIT
