There's a new development in the scandal surrounding the planned sale of Budapest's City Hall building. Although the left-wing mayor kept claiming for days that they had no plans to sell the property, a recently surfaced audio recording has revealed that the chief of Budapest's asset management company held discussions with investors and realtors regarding both the details of the sale and the scheduling of a prospective construction project.

The Budapest City Hall scandal erupted when documents indicating that the City Hall building – a listed monument – and the plot it occupies would go on sale for about 100 million euros appeared in the press. Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony reacted to the news on his Facebook page by posting that “no decision has been made on the sale of the property” and described the press reports as fake news.

Although the left-wing mayor has consistently denied any plans to sell the City Hall building and its plot, a recently surfaced audio recording proves that he was not telling the truth; there are indeed plans to sell the property and negotiations on the deal have been initiated.

As it can be deduced, Balazs J. Barts, CEO of Budapest’s asset management centre (Budapest Fovaros Vagyonkezelo Kozpont Zrt.), can be heard at the beginning of the recording, saying that: „This was the material that I presented to the cabinet. […]

What we are talking about is the old City Hall building and […] the entire plot area that’s included in the project. That’s 4.7 hectares, of which we would sell 3.9 hectares and keep eight thousand square metres.”

Thus, the CEO clearly states that the capital intends to sell the City Hall building and Budapest’s top leaders are aware of the plan. Mr Barts provides further details on the project, emphasizing that no definite decision has been taken regarding the fire station building. He puts it this way: „It could be negotiable at the time of the deal whether the plot of land the fire station occupies would also go on sale and we would sell the fire station building unencumbered. […] The fire station will be housed in the new building.”

Budapest’s mayor has provided some interesting additional information in recent days when, in an attempt to deny plans to sell the City Hall building, he disclosed that the capital is to announce a call for tenders for the refurbishment of the park surrounding the City Hall, in line with his election promise.

However, the topic of the park also comes up in the sound recording.

In the second leg of the recording we hear several men talking, and the discussion is being moderated by Balazs J. Barts, CEO of the asset management firm. He introduces himself and names two of his acquaintances among those present, calling them Gyula and Zsolt.

The two persons mentioned by their first names are most certainly Gyula Gansperger and Zsolt Berki, whose dealings have recently enjoyed widespread coverage by Hungarian media outlets. In a recording leaked on Sunday, the former spoke about how he bought a property in the capital in a way that raises the suspicion of corruption, with the latter’s involvement. Mr Berki’s name has also come up in connection with the sale of the City Hall building, because it was his company that commissioned the real estate broker to find buyers for the property for 40 billion forints (100 million euros).

In the audio recording, the negotiating parties are talking about how to schedule the construction on site, and what will happen to the park.

“Are we making a public park only to destroy it in a year?”

– an unknown man asks, and Mr Barts replies, “We’re making a public park because we promised to make a public park.”

However, the conversation reveals that the park is only planned for one year. As Mr Barts puts it, “I’ll have them make a plan in short order, and I’ll announce a public procurement tender in short order to have 250 parking places underneath the area by the time we have to build a park here. […] This leads us to a position where the park’s tender says no trees or anything should be placed in the area of the two envisioned wings. The area should be available later. […] And if all these are built, then the new city hall building can be built here, on this corner. […]

Of course, the park will be destroyed, but that’s another matter.”

The recording can therefore be interpreted, according to a summary published by the daily Magyar Nemzet, in a way that the negotiating partners – including the head of the capital’s asset management company – are discussing the possibility of building a large underground garage underneath the current City Hall building after it has been sold, allowing for the construction of a new City Hall building in one corner of the enormous plot. In the meantime, the public park Mr Karacsony mentioned can be done, because it was an election promise, but in reality it will mainly be used as a „stage of sorts” for both the machines and the workers during the construction.

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony

The Municipality of Budapest issued a statement regarding the new audio recording, which serves as proof that the capital’s mayor has been trying to cover up the case for days. The statement says the municipality had ordered a study on City Hall’s short-, medium-, and long-term development options with a view to assist its decision-making process. This “took stock of the possible short-, medium-, and long-term development options for the City Hall property, with an estimate of their approximate revenues and costs. In order to provide these estimates, market consultations also had to be carried out,” the statement adds.

In other words,

they admit that plans are afoot to sell one of Budapest’s iconic, protected buildings, and that there have been negotiations toward that end.