Author(s)

J. Bergatt Jackson

Abstract

This paper critically addresses the legal identification of brownfields in the Czech Republic, which the new Planning and Construction law enabled. It lists the advantages and the disadvantages of the Czech approach towards the visualising of brownfields and gives examples, where and why the law is not effective and suggests how it can be adjusted or the situation improved. The paper develops an argument that, in spite of various sources of publically accessible brownfield databases, Czech brownfield identification is still not consistent or effective, and supports this by examples. A description of the \“Community inventorying approach” is included, which is exploiting the possibilities offered by the recent legal changes. This new approach was developed with the aim to improve and regularly update the existing regional data sets and to give the communities easy tools to understand their brownfields. Also demonstrated is the need for analytical output from brownfields databases, which would help the regions and the communities to understand their regional and local trends. The paper also explains the effect of previous data insufficiency onto EU Structural Funds funding priorities for brownfields’ regeneration. Keywords: brownfields regeneration, brownfields inventorying tool, community orientated information, brownfields databases. 1 Introduction Urban regeneration and brownfields reuse improve local land economies and aid sustainable land use. Related development activities then help to convert local plans into reality. They also reflect onto local ability to manage and steer local development processes, attract and coordinate private and public investments and provide quality public domain and ample public benefits. The success of

Keywords

brownfields regeneration, brownfields inventorying tool, community orientated information, brownfields databases