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Parking costs vex landlords

Permanent residents alone will escape steep rates for downtown

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 12th, 2007 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
Landlord Association Chairman Tomislav Šimeček says his group is upset that they'll have to pay the rate in front of their own buildings.
About the street parking rates


Permanent residents: 700 Kč ($35) per year for each person listed at the address. A permit for a second car will cost 7,000 Kč per year; a third will cost 14,000 Kč per year
Pensioners who are permanent residents: 350 Kč per year for one car
All others: 12,000 Kč per year (down from an original proposal of 36,000 Kč per year) or 6,000 Kč for six months
Dates of implementation: Prague 1 and 2 by Nov. 1; Prague 7 and part of 3 by Dec. 1

Source: Transportation Department, City Hall

Landlords in downtown Prague are worried their tenants with cars will move out as a new parking-permit rule goes into effect at the end of October.
Foreigners and others who don’t have listed permanent addresses at their apartments must pay 12,000 Kč ($590) for parking permits in Prague districts 1, 2, 7 and part of 3 to park their cars on the streets under a new rule passed recently by the Prague city council.
“It’s a very serious discrimination,” says Tomislav Šimeček, chairman of the Landlord Association.
The new parking permit calls for permanent residents to pay 700 Kč a year for a permit. The permanent resident rate only applies to people whose national ID card lists their residence in these areas.
Since most foreigners do not have permanent residency in the Czech Republic, they’re not eligible for the lower rate.
In addition, Šimeček says his group is upset they’ll also pay the higher rate to park in front of their own buildings, since they usually don’t live in the places they rent to tenants. The Landlord Association represents 6,500 landlords nationwide.
City Hall had originally proposed a rate of 36,000 Kč per year for nonpermanent residents but cut that number by two-thirds after landlords balked.
Šimeček says he still isn’t satisfied with the lower figure.
“Our tenants who are foreigners are looking for places elsewhere,” he says.
Another landlord with properties in Prague 3, 5, 7 and 10 said he also is concerned. Landlord Karel Polata said one of his tenants just announced she will leave, in large part because she can’t afford to pay two months’ rent on a parking permit, he says. He estimates one-third of his tenants in his market-rent apartments are foreigners.
“She decided to move somewhere else, where the parking is still free,” Polata says.
Polata is anticipating that the new permit will cause some tenants to demand lower rent and others “will just decide to get a place two blocks away from my building where they do not have to pay for parking.”
To be eligible for a permanent address, a foreigner needs to live in the Czech Republic for at least five years, Šimeček says.
Landlords also worry that the new permit system will raise the cost of services since companies will need to buy several permits for different zones for their service workers’ vehicles, Šimeček says.
Landlords are obligated to make sure snow is shoveled, take care of waste disposal and keep buildings and grounds in good shape, and they hire cleaning companies and others to service their apartment buildings.
“It will be reflected in the price of the work. … It’s a very poorly designed regulation,” Šimeček says.
But Miroslav Čadský, a Prague transportation department official, says landlords can buy transferable parking cards, which can be loaned to visitors.
The city is implementing the new parking-permit system to keep residents downtown, Čadský says.
“The city wants to use this measure to fight depopulation of the city center” and to curb the trend to change residential buildings into administrative buildings, he says.
New permits will be required in districts 1 and 2 between Oct. 15 and Nov. 1 and in Prague 7 and part of Prague 3 by Dec. 1, Čadský says. Two-hour permits can also be bought for 120 Kč.
Cars without permits will be towed by the city police.
Permit revenue will go into a general Prague city fund, to the funds of the districts and municipal police, Čadský says.
— Naďa Černá and Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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