Authors: František Korbel, Dalibor Kovář
Source: Building World (december 2021)
In view of the current efforts to digitalise all kinds of procedures and acts, it is not surprising that the most debated act of recent years, Act No. 283/2021 Sb. (the “new Construction Act”), introduces a number of principles and provisions that are to lead to the efficient collection and use of information and data in electronic form in the coming years.
In July 2021, the new Construction Act was finally passed by the Chamber of Deputies. Thanks to the fundamental changes in the mode of operation of building authorities in the Czech Republic and certain aspects of the building approval and zoning procedures, it will be possible to create brand new processes on a digital basis, which do not constitute a mere transformation of hard copies of documents into digital form. Digital services in the context of the new Construction Act will be provided by the National Building Administration through new public administration information systems.
Specifically, these include the Builder’s Portal, the National Zoning Geoportal, the Construction Procedure Register, the Electronic Documentation Register, the Building Identification Number information system and other systems.
In matters relating to zoning and building procedures, the above systems will be administered by the recently established Supreme Construction Office, which will start its de jure operation on 1 January 2022 and will become the central administrative authority not only in matters of zoning, but also in matters concerning building procedures and expropriation.
Some of the information systems already exist today and, given the establishment of the National Building Administration system, they will be gradually taken over by the Supreme Construction Office; other information systems will only come into existence upon the entry into force of the new Construction Act.
The Builder’s Portal will be an independent public administration information system, which will be the primary access point for individuals and legal entities to other national building administration information systems (the Register of Zoning and Construction Procedures and other processes; the Electronic Documentation Register; the Building Identification Number and the National Zoning Geoportal). The Builder’s Portal will interconnect these systems and the communication with building and zoning authorities and other concerned authorities through interactive forms.
The Builder’s Portal will be a single online portal in which it will be possible to apply for all decisions and other measures. People will be able to use it to perform digital acts vis-à-vis the building authority and refer to electronic documents in information systems. The portal will also enable all authorised persons, based on the extent of their authorisation, to inspect the files of the building authorities and other digital repositories via remote access.
The Builder’s Portal will also be loosely connected to the functionalities of the Building Identification Number and the statements of owners and managers of technical infrastructure. A separate Building Identification Number information system will primarily be used to assign unique identifiers to buildings. The system will therefore uniquely identify a building within all existing systems and associate all data and documents kept in the systems in relation to the given building, thus virtually concentrating all data in a single place.
The National Zoning Geoportal information system will be used mainly for publishing outputs from zoning activities, enabling access to zoning records, monitoring the progress in obtaining zoning documentation or providing spatial data on planned land use.
Once established, the National Zoning Geoportal will ensure access to data and information from zoning activities in electronic form in a uniform data standard and in a machine-readable format. At the same time, this information system will be used to provide spatial data, i.e. data that directly or indirectly refer to a specific location or geographical area on the subject of planned land use in accordance with environmental protection requirements. The administrator and operator of the zoning geoportal will be, once again, the Supreme Construction Office.
The Construction Procedure Register will enable the storing of data on pending proceedings under the Construction Act, acts undertaken by the participants and the building authority in the proceedings and data related to these acts (in particular information on the authorised officials, their acts and how they contributed to the resulting decision) and the decisions of the building authority or other authority concerned. Once established, the Construction Procedure Register will make information and documents available in a way that allows remote access, therefore simplifying the processes for applicants in application procedures under the Construction Act. This will make it possible to obtain information on the status of the proceedings and undertaken steps without the need to look into the hard copies in person.
This information system will become a data repository for project documentations and similar documentations in electronic form, both in PDF and a machine-readable format. Applicants should enter their project documentation into the register via the Builder’s Portal.
The right to access data and electronic documents kept in the Construction Procedure Register and in the Electronic Documentation Register will be only granted to persons authorised to inspect the file pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Code, in order to abide by the principle of non-publicity of administrative proceedings.
The data will thus be accessible only to the participants in the proceedings, their agents and other persons that prove a legal interest. In addition to these persons, the new Construction Act allows access to the project documentation to those who are required by law to comment on it. Persons authorised to access the registers will have the right to remote access, including machine searches for information and the making of extracts and copies.
The full use of the above-mentioned information systems should be achieved after the new Construction Act becomes fully effective, i.e. from July 2023. From 2022 onwards, the individual information systems should be gradually put into operation, especially in technical and architectural terms. However, the most difficult task will ultimately be for the Supreme Construction Office to fill the individual information systems with sharp data, and for the new Chamber of Deputies to maintain, or at least to refrain from hampering, the described setting of the basic principles of the new Construction Act.
