The Defender became aware of the case of significant modifications of the façade of “U Zlaté koule” building (situated in Olomouc) thanks to a news report published by an on-line daily. The publicly available information suggested that the Construction Code may have been breached since the construction modifications of the street-facing façade had altered the appearance of the building without this being permitted by the competent construction authority. In this case, the authority competent to ensure compliance with the duties under the Construction Code was the Olomouc City Hall (hereinafter the “Construction Authority”). Taking the above facts into consideration, the Defender initiated inquiry into the case on her own initiative.

Over the course of the inquiry, the Construction Authority informed the Defender that in the given case, construction modifications resulting in a change of the building’s appearance were carried out. Therefore, one of the conditions pursuant to Section 103 (1)(d) of the Construction Code was not met and the construction modification thus required a construction permit. In assessing the change of appearance of the structure, the Construction Authority based its deliberations on the fact that the original façade had been richly decorated with façade elements and the new façade lacked any differentiation, in other words the change of the façade’s appearance was obvious. Given the above-described facts, the Construction Authority advised the Defender that it would initiate proceedings ex officio to remove the unauthorised construction modifications.

Taking into consideration that the Construction Authority had already carried out remedial measures consisting in the initiation of proceedings aimed at removal of the unauthorised construction modification of the “U Zlaté koule” building in the course of the inquiry, the Defender decided to close the inquiry. Nevertheless, she reserved the right to monitor the Construction Authority’s further procedure in this case.