The digital construction permitting procedure in the Czech Republic is not going to be fully functional in the foreseeable future. There is even the possibility of commissioning a completely new system, reports E15.cz.
This would mean the correction of the newly introduced Czech digital construction permitting procedure will be moved to the next election period. Meanwhile, investors and developers are already running out of the cushion of projects they created by applying for permits under the old construction law.
The report of IT experts from four ministries, based on which Prime Minister Petr Fiala dismissed the chairman of the Pirates, Minister for Regional Development and Deputy Prime Minister for Digitisation Ivan Bartoš, assumed that the repair of all functionalities would take between a year and a year and a half. Such a long deadline unpleasantly surprised real estate investors, but now Transport Minister Martin Kupka claims the deadline can be much longer. It should be clear after the meeting of the newly formed government on October 16, where the cabinet should decide whether it will prefer the gradual repair of Bartoš's system or the production of a new one.
Kupka's team is currently working on an analysis that his government colleagues should bring to the table during negotiations. The minister did not want to indicate which variant he prefers, whether it is a repair or the production of a new system. According to Kupka, the agile way of developing a digital system, i.e. continuous with the gradual addition and correction of individual functions, which Bartoš chose to save time, has its drawbacks. According to him, if it were to go the route of awarding a new public contract, it should be detailed in what the state requires from the system. According to the minister, the government must also communicate much more with users, i.e. construction officials in particular, to find out their expectations, which will now be a task, especially for the new Minister for Local Development, Petr Kulhánek (STAN).
In any case, the cabinet will try to push through the parliament by the beginning of December a legislative amendment that would allow construction authorities to temporarily use even the old systems. This should move the application process along until a more permanent solution is found.
