Updated: Mini-Dubai: Gov't Seeking to Benefit Budapest Through Rakosrendezo Project
- 12 Feb 2025 7:06 AM

"We don't ever work against somebody or something but always for something... When working to rehabilitate Rakosrendezo we want to help the people of Budapest," he said, adding that the "undeserved attacks" on the government were based on an assumption that "the government wants to do bad".
Lazar said the first step in the project would be to remove "330 cubic metres of mostly domestic waste deposited by local residents" before starting construction, which "should serve prosperity and help improve the quality of life of locals".
"In the nation's capital", no project should be implemented without local support, he said. "We want to carry out the project in a way that is good for everybody."
He added that the Dubai developers "built a metropolis from scratch" as opposed to the current leaders of Budapest "who are incapable of doing anything with a metropolis". He noted that the prospective developer has agree to remove the waste accumulated in the area.
Lazar also said no building in the project area would go up unless it "fits the architectural fabric of Budapest". "No skyscrapers or mosques will be built here..." he added.
The minister said the city badly needed green areas and "if 50-60 hectares of parks are included in a project area of 130 hectares, that will be good for all the people of Budapest."
Traffic around the project site should also be reorganised so that it benefits locals, Lazar added.
"There have been rumours that the city wanted somebody else to have that area rather than a foreign investor," he said. "Obviously there is some Hungarian developer that has expressed interest in the area and the city wants him to have the area."
The government questions Budapest's pre-emptive rights to purchase the area, Lazar said, adding that if the city went ahead and tried to exercise such rights under a recent decision by the municipal assembly "a court could rule in the case".
Lazar: Transport ministry to handle govt issues related to Budapest property development
The construction and transport ministry will handle all government issues related to the Rakosrendezo development project in Budapest, Janos Lazar, the ministry's head, said on Tuesday, referring to a decision made by the prime minister the previous day.
The ministry will negotiate with the Budapest administration once the purchase contract and registration of ownership is signed, Lazar told a press conference in Sopron, in western Hungary, adding that he hoped for "a good agreement and cooperation". The purchase contract's annex contains a schedule of measures, he said.
A ministerial commissioner will be appointed to see to various ministry tasks and enter into talks, he noted.
Cleaning up the area will be the top priority requiring the capital's cooperation, he said, adding that this issue was not directly related to the purchase contract.
The metropolitan council will have to immediately start removing 330,000 cubic meters of waste from the area at a cost of up to 25 billion forints (EUR 62.5m), he said, adding that the government would cooperate and provide related administrative and legal assistance.
Also, the area in which national rail company MAV operates must be delineated, the minister said, and MAV would have to make use of land there to "the necessary and minimum extent".
Talks will be held on the part of the contract worth more than 25 billion forints, Lazar added.
Gergely Karacsony said in a Facebook post that a partnership with the government was needed in order to carry off an investment on such a scale, and he accused the government of "going back and forth" just as it had done when claiming previously that Budapest did not have pre-emption rights.
Exercising this right would serve the city's future rather than "the interests of Arab investors and oligarchs close to the government".
The mayor also accused the Hungarian state of having been a negligent custodian of the area for decades, tolerating and actively taking part in "illegal dumping" of waste.
Once Budapest "takes possession" of the area, the Budapest Public Utilities (BKM) company would capably oversee the clean-up, he said.
This, he added, "won't happen overnight", but "we"ll do our job".
Karacsony welcomed the government's appointment of Lazar to take charge of tasks related to the project.
He insisted that Lazar had not read the purchase agreement, however, saying that "contrary to all government statements", the state sold the area "to the Arab investor without the buyer having undertaken any obligation" to clean it up.
The purchase agreement states that the Hungarian state and the buyer -- now the metropolitan council -- must conclude a separate agreement on the issue of environmental damage and waste management, as well as how the costs are borne.
"We're ready for this," he said, adding that Budapest would begin clearing municipal waste "as soon as it takes possession" of the area. But the state, he added, bore responsibility for the cost of clearing construction debris of the Budapest Sports Hall as well as waste generated by national rail company MAV.
Karacsony said the purchase contract was "clear" and obliged both the government and Budapest to undertake waste disposal tasks.
Landmark Real-Estate Development At Risk Due to "Irresponsible" Mayor of Budapest
Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, is putting the planned landmark real-estate Rakosrendezoő development at risk, Botond Sara, the head of the government office for Budapest.
Sara said the proposed development was massive and complicated, given that an international treaty has been signed and a related law passed, and in light of the "huge commitments" made, Karacsony was acting "irresponsibly" and putting the investment at risk by blocking the project and running the capital "illegally".
In a video uploaded to Facebook, Sara said the Budapest administration still lacked a deputy mayor and its 2025 budget was "illegal", so it was no longer running the city on lawful foundations.
He insisted that the decision on the development required "common sense and calm", adding that Karacsony should not take risks and "reconsider the matter".
In a post on Facebook, Alexandra Szentkiralyi, the head of the Fidesz group in the city assembly, accused Karacsony of acting in such a way as to deprive Budapesters of "thousands of new jobs and many thousands of new apartments", as well as railway and metro developments.
Referring to "illegal rubbish dumps, mountains of hazardous waste and ruined and abandoned buildings" as well as "drug dens and homeless shelters", she said the central government had launched the "biggest development in the history of the capital", yet Karacsony was doing everything he could to prevent the project from going ahead.
She said the mayor was trying to distract attention away from "the fact that he and his allies have pushed Budapest into total bankruptcy".
She said in the video posted on Friday that Karacsony's administration would not purchase the area legally and the capital no longer had "the money to resolve this issue".
Meanwhile, David Vitezy, the leader of the Podmaniczky Movement group in the city assembly, said the state should have "cleaned up" the brownfiled site of Rakosrendezo but had failed to, while also neglecting to oblige "the [UAE] Arab investors" in the purchase contract to do so.
The opposition politician noted that the construction and transport minister, Janos Lazar, had promised to clean up the site using state money, given state railway MAV and the state had owned the area for many decades. "Nothing happened; they couldn't even mount a tender to clean up the area," he added.
He said the government's main arguments in support of the investment were that the Arab buyer, who has agreed to invest five trillion forints (EUR 12.3bn), would clean it up. "But this isn't so," he said insisting that the investor was under no obligation in the purchase contract to do so.
The contract, he added, stated that the seller and the buyer would enter into a separate agreement regarding environmental damage and waste. But this did not oblige the Arab investor to undertake anything, he said, adding that the clean-up remain the burden of the state and taxpayers.
Source:
MTI - The Hungarian News Agency, founded in 1881.
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