The Supreme Administrative Court has shown that it is possible to successfully fight against purposeful changes to a city’s zoning plan
Purposeful changes to a city’s zoning code can be successfully fought – even if they are pushed through and approved by the city. A case decided earlier this year has proven that. The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has repeatedly ruled that the special-purpose amendment to the Poděbrady zoning plan was illegal.
“We are pleased that the Supreme Administrative Court has accepted our arguments and confirmed the illegality of the zoning plan change. This is a significant success not only for our client – it shows that the interests of towns and municipalities regarding zoning do not always have to be in accordance with the law and can be successfully defended against,” says Pavel Strnad, the lawyer who handled the dispute.
The dispute concerned a building in the centre of Poděbrady. After the failure in the zoning procedure, a fundamental and completely purposeful “addendum” to the forthcoming change in the town’s zoning plan appeared, which changed the conditions so that the building could pass the zoning procedure.
The administrative action against the zoning change was initially rejected by the Regional Court for reasons that are incomprehensible. However, an appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court was successful. The Court held that the amendment to the zoning plan was illegal insofar as it was an apparent addition. The case was then sent back to the Regional Court, which again made an incomprehensible decision and judged the addition to be illegal only in half. “We had no choice but to appeal again to the Supreme Administrative Court, which has now overturned this decision as well. The Supreme Administrative Court criticized in particular the fact that the draft amendment to the zoning plan clearly did not correspond to the original assignment and that the process of amending the zoning plan was carried out in violation of the law and case law,” added attorney Pavel Strnad of the Polverini Strnad Law Firm.
