The South Moravian Region expects a rise in costs with regard to the establishment of a central construction office in Brno. The regional office will become the appeal office for Brno, will have to hire an estimated 20 new officials, expand its premises and archive. Jan Grolich (KDU-ČSL) said after today’s meeting of councillors. The city councillors approved the transfer of building offices from the city districts to one seat and their competence under the city hall at their meeting on Tuesday.
“Brno has decided and we will do nothing about it, the regional authority must prepare for it. We will have to recruit about 20 people, which will cost money, as well as expanding the premises and archives. We don’t know how much, but it is clear that there will be costs associated with this. We will get more money from the state, but that always covers about 70 percent of the costs, and that’s operational, not acquisition costs,” Grolich said. He said the costs will be covered by the county from the budget reserve.
The shift is expected to start on July 1 next year, when the new building law takes effect. The county office must also get ready by then. The Department of Spatial Planning and Building Authority now has 36 employees. “We expect an increase of thousands or maybe tens of thousands of files. We will not only need officials, we also don’t have equipment, technology. Costs will rise in the order of millions, maybe tens of millions of crowns. We will now start collecting data to know how many files have been processed,” said Roman Heinz, the office’s director.
The director and Grolich, when questioned by the councillors, said that no one from the level of Brno had officially discussed the plan to move the construction offices with them. “After the cancelled third boiler at the incinerator, this is another case where Brno is making the situation very complicated in relation to the region with these decisions. The inhabitants of Brno are also inhabitants of the region and it is necessary to take into account cooperation,” Stanislav Juránek (KDU-ČSL) noted.
Brno City Hall spokesman Filip Poňuchálek replied that the matter had been discussed with Martin Maleček (STAN), who is a coalition city councillor and regional councillor for spatial planning. “Of course we are counting on continuing to be in contact with the regional authority on this matter,” Poňuchálek said.
Brno’s leadership hopes that the centralisation will speed up the permitting process, ensure a uniform interpretation of the zoning plan and facilitate the transition to digitalisation of building procedures. According to opponents, the process will not be completed in six months, and they also fear that officials in one office will gradually lose local knowledge.
Source: CTK
