The planned opening of the Presidential Palace's Grassalkovich garden, originally scheduled for the beginning of June, has been indefinitely postponed because a set of public toilets in the public section of the park has not yet received the go-ahead from the State Hygiene Department.
According to Eva Švolíková from the district office in Staré Mesto, the project will remain stalled until the toilet contruction problem is solved.
The garden will have two sections: one for public use and one exclusively for the use of Slovak President Rudolf Schuster. The permit for opening the garden calls for the president's section to be opened at the same time as the public section. With the delays in the public section, however, the president cannot yet enjoy his garden, even though construction there has been completed.
State officials are now discussing the possibility of issuing separate opening permits, thus allowing President Rudolf Schuster to use his garden while the public toilets are being okayed.
According to the construction permit, building should be finished by the end of this year, although officials had predicted that June would be the opening date. When all construction is completed, the garden will fall under the administration of Staré Mesto Vepos, a local technical and maintenance service.
The director of Vepos, Jozef Cepek, said that before opening the garden, the current number of benches in the park will be increased by 90 and that they will also install 20 new waste baskets.
The Staré Mesto district also plans on building a playground for children on the northern wing of the garden.
