ŘSD Pays the Knights of Malta CZK 269 Million for the Ring Road's Březiněves Interchange

The Road and Motorway Directorate (ŘSD) has bought land near Březiněves from the Czech Grand Priory of the Sovereign Order of Malta for CZK 269,447,040. The contract, published in the state contracts register and reported by Zdopravy.cz, covers two smaller plots and one large one west of the village, right beside the four-lane Cínovecká road at the point where it becomes the D8 motorway.

The land is arable and an expert valuation put it at CZK 33.68 million. ŘSD pays eight times the appraised value for land that is not zoned for building, which is how a quarter of a billion crowns changes hands for three fields.

What goes there

The plots are needed for section D0 519, Suchdol–Březiněves, of the Prague ring road. This is where the large Březiněves grade-separated interchange is planned, connecting the ring road to the D8 and to Cínovecká, and where the northern section towards Satalice, D0 520, will begin.

With the land ŘSD also takes over a lease under which local farmers work it. That lease will have to be terminated before construction starts.

Why eight times

The multiple is set in law, and ŘSD presents it as the reason owners are selling rather than holding out. In September its director, Radek Mátl, explained the arithmetic:

We are in the Prague agglomeration, prices are very high. Under the law it is eight times the price for agricultural land and one and a half times for building land. We offer citizens very good prices and I think they appreciate it and sell their land.

— Radek Mátl, director of ŘSD

The other side of that offer is the one ŘSD makes at meetings with landowners: if an owner refuses and the land is expropriated, ŘSD can pay only the appraised price, without the multiple. A sale is worth eight times what an expropriation would be.

How far along the buy-out is

Mátl said in September that two billion crowns had already been paid out for land and that more than ten billion would be spent on purchases for this part of the ring road in total. By the end of this year, he said, up to 80 per cent of it should have been bought.

New signed contracts arrive practically every day and the percentage of purchased land is growing.

— Radek Mátl, director of ŘSD

ŘSD wants most of the property settlement finished by the end of 2027. The documentation is due to be completed in the first quarter of next year, after which ŘSD plans to apply for a project permit (povolení záměru). Construction is planned to start at the turn of 2028 and 2029.

Reading it

The sum is striking, but the more telling detail is the lever behind it. The northern ring road is still drawing objections from local councils over traffic and noise, Zdopravy.cz notes, and has no permit yet. What ŘSD is assembling in the meantime is the land, and the eightfold price is what lets it do that by contract rather than by expropriation proceedings, which would be slower and contested. The price of that speed is now on the public record, one contract at a time.