Use of brownfields in time and in practice

During Wednesday morning, the URBIS SMART CITY FAIR conference focused on the area of ​​brownfields – derelict buildings and properties that are no longer in use. Radka Vladyková, Director of the Union of Towns and Municipalities of the Czech Republic, spoke about the topic.

Brownfields are a problem for cities, regions, and therefore the whole of the Czech Republic. The common denominator of these properties is abandonment, neglect and sometimes contamination. We can also come across the term blackfield, which is a property that is already heavily contaminated and environmentally burdened. There is also a concept called greenfield – open land mostly suitable for agriculture.

The Czech Republic has a large number of rundown and disused buildings that were erected more than 70 to 80 years ago as large agricultural and industrial enterprises. After 1989, they gradually disappeared and in the new post-revolutionary period they no longer found use. 2375 such properties have been identified in the Czech Republic so far, not counting the territory of Prague. These sites negatively impact the whole surrounding areas – safety and sanitation of the buildings are at stake, as these places are often chosen by socially maladapted people and eventually become a great burden for the whole city. Places adjacent to brownfields are also often depopulated.

Cities and municipalities make effort to change these places, to make use of them. However, this is a hugely complicated problem. It must be understood in the broadest possible context with regard to the impacts mentioned above, that is, how this particular site area affects the whole surrounding area. We have to work together with the state, often with the involvement of citizens. The Union of Towns and Municipalities managed to return an amount of 3.3 billion Czech crowns for cities, municipalities and municipalities into the National Recovery Plan. This amount should therefore be used for the regeneration of these sites.