Állítsd be, hogy az Economx az elsők között legyen a Google-találatokban!
In the best case, the answers are found before the investments start, but there have been examples where they were only finalised after lengthy wrangling between the affected district, the capital and the investor. It's as if no decision has yet been as to which enjoys higher priority, transport development or urban development.
Gábor Futó, CEO, Futureal group:
City or property development is impossible without the transportation of the given area having been planned, and the basic infrastructure built out. In this sense, transport development enjoys a priority, if for nothing else then because a botched transport strategy has permanent effects which can be very difficult to modify later on. District zoning, in addition, should be subordinated to a comprehensive transport strategy. The preparation and implementation of such a comprehensive strategy is the task of the Budapest government, which, like every public investment, should be financed from collected taxes.
Under current practice, local governments like to shift the task of building out part of the public infrastructure to property developers. I think it is completely acceptable that a developer should participate in some supplemental infrastructure development tasks which stem from its investment or become necessary as a direct effect of it, but building out a city-level infrastructure cannot be a task that is arbitrarily forced on developers. It is unacceptable that a developer buys a plot of land, but then is refused a construction permit until he meets some yet-unforeseen demands from the local government.
There has been some progress compared to the earlier system, such as the municipal planning contract between the local government and the investor, which attempts to lay down the obligations of both sides in a planned, phased system and with mutual guarantees. However, this is still not a fair, transparent and calculable tool, especially in the case of developments with more than one player and with significant public interests at stake. In the case of transport developments which are connected to more than one investment, or even form a part of the public infrastructure network, it is impossible even in theory to manage the problem efficiently by "blackmailing" developers.
Everyone's interest would be to delay his own developments, and let the others or the government sector build out the infrastructure. This would result in the participants failing to reach an agreement, it would not be in their interest to progress with the development, and no one would carry out the public investment. I see two solutions. One is that public infrastructure development remains a public task, and the other is the introduction of a general development tax, which would affect everyone equally, is calculable, and is pooled into a development fund.
András Ekés, managing director, Metropolitan Research Institute:
Transport development is an integrated part of urban development, and optimally, as well as according to general international practice, building out public transportation precedes the building in of an area. Unfortunately, however, a lot of large-scale urban development programs have been launched in Budapest and its surroundings where transport connections are not resolved. Development is essentially a competency of the capital city, but this would necessitate the setting up of a fund to take care of financing, which would be filled up by the public contributions of private developers. In effect, the municipal planning contract now plays this role, more precisely it was designed to secure that the additional infrastructure needs brought on by the project are met, but the key point is which are considered public investments that are linked to the development and which are unrelated to it.
The building of a feeder road is obvious, but the negative effects are much wider. Not to speak of the fact that local governments are unable to benefit from the increase in value resulting from transport development, for which the metro 4 project is a good example. Here private investors instead of the financier will reap the profits from the investment - which is financed by immense public funds -, and from the rise in the area's value. Another problem is that investors today are not forced to follow a conscious urban development strategy, and instead of carrying out investments focussed in one area, create these same capacities in a more scattered way, embedded into the operating fabric of the city.
The Westend destroyed traffic on the main boulevard with constant bottlenecks, as well as the area's commercial function. By the time the region would more or less recover from the shock, Westend 2 will come along, and there is no one to say no. Of course this presupposes a strong role played by the capital. But we could also bring the examples of the Kossuth Lajos Street - Rákóczi Road corridor as an anomaly of urban and transport development, as well as those suburban developments which will only be accessible by some future public transport tools, to be financed by who knows whom.
