The amendment to the Agricultural Land Fund Protection Act was drafted by the Czech Ministry of the Environment, arguing the need to protect the most valuable land from being developed with warehouses and shopping centres. If the amendment is adopted, it would not be possible to build such complexes and photovoltaic plants larger than one hectare on it. However, experts believe that the approval of this proposal would significantly damage the industrial and logistics real estate market. It would also make construction on the remaining land classes more expensive, which would damage the Czech Republic’s so far very shaky restart. Most importantly, the increase in all these prices would be felt by the end customer, whose goods would become more expensive.
“We are already facing a shortage of land for the construction of modern shopping complexes. This is reflected in the price of the land that is on offer. If the Czech state wants to attract projects with a higher added value to the country, it has nowhere to put these projects given the current shortage of land. The amendment does not rule out the construction of manufacturing companies on this land. However, production cannot do without warehouses and who will evaluate whether a warehouse is already too big in the context of the project,” said Tomáš Prouza, president of the Confederation of Commerce and Tourism of the Czech Republic (SOCR ČR), adding: “In addition, the draft amendment also provides for an increase in fees for the seizure of land for the construction of warehouses or shopping centres falling into the remaining land classes. This would also significantly reduce the Czech Republic’s competitiveness in the commercial real estate market and investors would rather head to neighbouring countries, which often have better infrastructure. Minister Hladík’s proposal thus supports further underdevelopment of the Czech Republic.”
If we do not build large logistics centres, the network of local warehouses for supplying individual establishments will continue to thicken. This decentralised supply model is, however, associated with a greater transport burden and is therefore significantly uneconomic and environmentally unfriendly. Logistics centres today are not just warehouses, but are actually IT centres which, thanks to advanced technology, optimise the distribution of goods to individual stores and set up truck load systems, again reducing the carbon footprint.
“Logistics centres, currently built as energy-efficient or even self-sufficient buildings, are linked to the motorway network to minimise greenhouse gas emissions. They also create new jobs, often in regions with higher unemployment rates. Sufficient capacity in the logistics centres of the stores is a prerequisite for good availability of goods and low prices, so that the trader is able to order and stock more goods at a favourable price. Efficient logistics also helps to guarantee the freshness of goods and reduce food waste,” added Prouza.
The drafters of the amendment operate on the need to protect the most valuable land from being developed, yet it is fine for them to build industrial plants on these lands. However, the greatest danger to agricultural land in the Czech Republic has long been aggressive agriculture, which depletes the soil in combination with soil erosion. Moreover, the amendment appears to be a popular domestic legislative entanglement, because we already have sufficient tools to balance the situation – decisions on land use planning belong to municipal councils and state administration bodies, and the situation is also overseen by the Czech Ministry of the Environment, which should monitor unconceptual interventions, not encourage them.
By submitting the amendment, the Ministry of the Environment is continuing its attempt to have a monopoly on deciding what happens to the landscape and land in the Czech Republic. It has an orthodox attitude to the possible removal of land from the agricultural land fund, often in cases where part of unused agricultural land could make a large brownfield site attractive to investors by connecting it to a larger plot of land. The Ministry of the Environment is thus also going against the efforts of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, which has been striving for new investments in the Czech Republic and has long been devoted to the revitalisation of brownfields.
“The environment, which is in the name of this very strange amendment, is not just about protecting nature at all costs. In fact, the protection of the human environment goes hand in hand with the public interest and sustainable development that civilised humanity is striving for in the 21st century. This has an environmental aspect as well as a social and economic aspect. Neither should be superior to the other, because ‘healthy’ land without exploitation or economization serves no one, just like a nature reserve that man will never visit,” concluded Prouza.
Author: SOCR ČR
