Residents sign new leases with owner of Přednadraží Street slum

Residents of No. 8 in Přednadraží Street, a devastated building in Ostrava, in the east of the country, signed new leases on Monday with building owner Oldřich Roztočil. The owner told journalists that 11 out of 14 apartments were taken, insisting all except one were fully habitable. Rent, plus utilities, reportedly comes to 6,500 crowns a month. Renters however will no longer be able to count on subsidies as the site is no longer registered as a tenement building. The city is insisting that a recent court decision waiving a fine for the tenement’s owner’s company had nothing to with – and in no way invalidated – existing eviction notices.