The Czech government approved the new construction law after years of preparation. Opposition parties complain that the new law doesn’t do enough to protect national monuments and that it centralizes decision making too much. But the government expects it to reduce the time it takes to get a construction permit from 5.4 years to just one year. It should achieve this by integrating permits into a single construction office, by setting strict time limits for decisions and by removing the practice of allowing endless appeals to decisions. The new law is due to be approved by parliament and become valid by next spring. The implementation of the changes it requires will take until 2023.
