Between 1948 and 1989, Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Communist Party. In 1993, the country was peacefully divided into two states: Czechia and Slovakia. Since then, Czechia has implemented significant economic reforms to create a market economy, including the privatisation of its socialist housing stock. Today, 76% of the residents of Prague, Czechia’s capital, own their home, but 12% are threatened by the loss of housing and 1% live in substandard homes, with state support limited to housing allowances.
As with many other capital cities, Prague’s climate ambition is more advanced than the rest of the country’s, but its comprehensive Prague Climate Plan 2030 is hindered by poor national climate leadership and ambition, with ministries failing to comply with the Paris Agreement. Built environment decarbonisation and resilience processes currently lack transparency, inclusion, and clear communication, leading to general distrust in institutions and fear of the ecological transition.
The lack of tenant safeguards means that the New Green Savings programme, funded by the EU, is improving energy efficiency but resulting in renovictions. The lack of impact assessments leads to scepticism about the green transition among construction workers, many of whom are migrants and work in precarious conditions. There are few causes for optimism, but the wide range of NGOs scrutinising government performance can hopefully ensure that incipient initiatives such as Bubny-Zátory, the country’s first carbon-neutral neighbourhood, protect human rights.
For more information, read the Prague City Summary Report
Opportunities for the green transition
DECARBONISATION ACTIONS STRENGTHENING SPATIAL JUSTICE
After the end of communist rule, Prague’s Municipality sold almost all its housing stock and stopped building new homes, leaving that task to the private sector. In 2020, facing growing housing unaffordability, the Municipality established its own Prague Development Company, with the aim of developing 6,000-8,000 public, affordable housing apartments by 2030. The company has already been handed 70 hectares of land previously owned by a mixture of public agencies, and it has developed a pipeline of ten projects to deliver high- quality, energy-efficient rental units available at affordable prices for key workers, single- parent families, and independently-living seniors. This is an example of how a public development company, by not sacrificing location nor sustainability standards to offer affordability, is able to benefit people across the city.
Risks from the green transition
The EU-funded New Green Savings programme provided incentives for building retrofits. Many landlords benefited from the public incentive but transferred the costs involved onto occupants through increased rents, which they often cannot afford. This leads to evictions as well as the direct transfer of public funds into the hands of landlords. A local association representative stated: “There are tendencies to save costs, but people complain that landlords try to transfer the costs [of retrofitting] onto occupants. In Czechia [...] the tenant is protected only for a year. Then the landlord says, ‘I’ve done the insulation, I want more. Take it or leave it’”.
The current lack of assessments quantifying the impact of the green transition on construction workers means public and private actors are unable to re-skill and fill the jobs needed, as well as organise to ensure new jobs are decent. As a result, businesses will struggle to recruit, and governments may miss their climate targets. A local ministry official stated: “We are concerned about the impacts on the economy and people. If these [impacts] were more understandable and calculated, people would have a better attitude. Personally, I think that decarbonisation is a huge benefit, but it is hard to explain to people without more concrete information. Unions have been asking for impact assessments since 2020, and we still have nothing”.
City Future Vision: Prague
Collaborative and knowledge-driven
Disparate government agencies work together to ensure a cohesive, bold approach to inclusive building decarbonisation. Knowledge hubs facilitate learning between different cities and regions, that become emboldened to test new models such as cooperative housing and citizen advisory teams. Governments create the opportunities and market for the transition, and provide dedicated funding for smaller towns, where grassroots innovations often emerge. The private sector uses its huge transformative potential in a socially responsible way by increasing transparency, engaging citizens and local communities, and shifting from short-term profit maximisation to long-term thinking and planning.
See the full insights report from the Prague visioning workshop held on 19 January 2023
New economic model
Housing Cooperatives in Prague
Almost 10% of Prague’s residents live in cooperative housing. In this model, the housing cooperative owns the buildings, and the residents are its members, with their monthly payments granting them the right to use their homes. The model is so popular that the City of Prague is aiming to roll out its own housing co-operative. Sdílené Domy (Shared Homes) was the first Czech cooperative to join MOBA, a network of housing cooperatives across East-Central and South-Eeastern Europe. Concerned about the potential for homes to be sub-let or privatised with some housing cooperative structures, it set itself up as a social cooperative instead, with one vote per resident rather than one vote per housing unit. To purchase its first property, it secured a loan from the German foundation Umverteilen which covered 70% of the cost, with 30% coming from private loans from supporters or future residents, as well as funding from MOBA.