The Greens want to discuss the development of Letná with the city hall

Prague - The Prague greens will start collecting signatures for a petition to discuss the planned development of the plain in the council on Sunday at the former Stalin monument in Letná. They oppose the intention to build a huge aquarium with marine animals and a new football stadium on one of the last green spaces in the city center, considering the proposal for the National Library, which is to be constructed on the plain, controversial as well. "These are large projects and we lack public debate," said Petra Kolínská, head of the Prague greens, to reporters today.
In order for the topic to be opened at the council meeting, the authors of the petition must collect a thousand signatures. According to Kolínská, it would be incomparably more difficult and time-consuming to call a referendum under the current rules of general voting, which is why the greens are not currently considering this option. The projects could at least temporarily be blocked by designating the former monument as a cultural heritage site, about which the Society for Old Prague will likely consider a proposal for listing.
The petition campaign will be complemented by a campaign to preserve the current face of the Letná plain, which according to the first signatories of the petition serves as one of the last places in the center for free relaxation. The constructions would push out the skateboarders who consider the former monument the center of their sport. According to the opponents of the project, it is unclear from the available materials how much space the parking lots and infrastructure needed for operating the underground aquarium, which is to be visited by 6000 people daily, would take up on the plain. Just for the Sparta stadium, whose capacity is set to increase from 16,000 to 40,000 seats, the new stadium project includes 2,300 parking spaces.
Unlike the aquarium and stadium, the organizers of the campaign are not united in their opposition to the library proposal. However, they agree that the building would generate interest in further development in the surrounding area. This problem generally applies to all of Prague, as Letná and other locations face the privatization of public space, which brings about the deterioration of the environment, they believe.