An area five times larger than Lake Venice is awaiting development

The new digital mapping system Építési és Közlekedési Minisztérium focuses on abandoned and underutilised brownfield sites. Regő Lánszki, State Secretary, reminded viewers in a video posted on the ministry's social media page in a video posted on the ministry's social media page, pointed out that the architectural law made it clear that brownfield sites should be developed as a priority. The Brownfield Site Cadastre (BarKA) serves this purpose.

What is BarKA?

BarKA is a publicly available digital mapping system that collects brownfield sites in Hungary according to uniform rules. Brownfield sites are plots of land or groups of areas that were previously used for industrial, commercial, transport or other intensive purposes. On the interactive map, brownfield sites are delineated on the basis of the land registry.

Where are these areas located?

The BarKa map is now freely available: according to this, most of these areas are located in the former heavy industry regions, around Miskolc and in Baranya, in addition to the capital. At the same time, the map also shows a number of such properties in the regions of Ózd, Salgótarján and Kecskemét.

There are two paths ahead of a city

„A city can be developed in two ways: either it expands outwards, as we have seen in Hungary in recent decades, with green areas being built on. Or it expands inwards, with unused areas being incorporated,” emphasised the chief architect.

He stated that there are 2,500 hectares of such areas in Budapest and 12,000 hectares nationwide, the latter being five times the size of Lake Velence.

One of the most important regulatory elements of BarKA is the so-called 5-kilometre circle, which automatically appears on the map around brownfield sites. Under the Building Act, only limited areas near such sites may be designated for new development.