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The Metropolitan Plan now wants to return to our roots and traditional city planning where the plan primarily determines the city structure.

Since the 1930s, the idea was promoted that the city needs to be divided into zones of work, housing and recreation, while a transport zone would move the inhabitants between them. Soon, however, the original four functions ceased to suffice, and the zones in the Zoning Plans began to break up into smaller and smaller areas. There were already over ninety types in the current plan. The Metropolitan Plan now wants to return to our roots and traditional city planning where the plan primarily determines the city structure. The second problem with the current plan is its instability: 2 060 changes to the Zoning Plan were discussed between 2000 and 2012 alone. All these changes meant the Zoning Plan lost respect and its binding force. Hence the current plan seeks to set regulations to reduce their number.

Main topics

  • The end of the city’s growth into the surrounding landscape
    Today, a sort of settlement mush is emerging around Prague: the unstructured development of satellite houses and warehouses is transforming the original open landscape into something that is not a real city, meadow or field.
     
  • The setting of height regulations
    The city must define its composition not only on a 2D perspective (building block boundaries, public space axes and the landscape structure), but also in space, in terms of height: by determining height levels and old and new landmarks.
     
  • Quality public spaces
    What people perceive as the city is mainly streets, squares, parks and waterfronts - meaning public spaces.
  • Protection of the character of localities
    Life is good in places that are memorable, places with their own spirit.
     
  • New city parks
    A dramatically shaped landscape has a major impact on the genius loci of the capital.
     
  • Exploiting the potential of the river
    Morphology always determines the face of the city.
     
  • Creation of new municipal districts
    Prague is “as full of holes as Swiss cheese”: there are large unused transformational areas in the wider center of the city.

Concept of the Plan

The Existing Prague Zoning Plan

  • The current zoning plan for the City of Prague, approved in 1999, defines the city's development. The plan is the basis for decision-making by the building authorities, and must be respected by all proposed developments. The current zoning plan identifies publicly beneficial development, addresses transport and technical infrastructure and, above all, defines how individual parcels of land can be utilized.

The current zoning plan defines:

  • Functional regulations, or the permitted land use of individual sites (eg: residential, industrial, sports and recreation, public amenity, transport, etc.)
     
  • Spatial regulations, or the capacity of each site, which differs based on the site’s designation as either a stabilized, developmental, or transformational area. 
     
  • The share of housing in the city center, as well as where green areas, flood plains, large development areas, publically beneficial developments, transport infrastructure, and technical infrastructure are to be located