Last December, the Chinese electric car manufacturer BYD announced that He builds his first European factory in Szeged. Mayor László Botka even then about the establishment of a workers’ hostel spoke. Back in January, we asked the Deputy Mayor of Szeged Urban Development Sándor Nagy about this, from whom we learned that the relevant government decree did not specify the location of the hotel, only that it would be built somewhere within the industrial park purchased by BYD.
However, thanks to the e-construction portal, it has now been revealed that BYD is located on the western border of its territory applied for permits on site for the construction of the container city. This means that the factory construction workers, who will probably still mostly be Chinese at first, will live as far as possible from the nearest residential area, Liliom Lakókert in Bétekelep (where the residents are not so happy about the arrival of the factory), next to the busy Budapesti út, and later even the factory workers workers too.
The container housing park is not without precedent, the BMW factory in Debrecen were also established during construction such accommodations before. Csaba Szilágyi, the deputy managing director of the company employing guest workers, told the local county newspaper that the construction industry is a highly procyclical industry, meaning that when labor is suddenly needed, it must be brought here from elsewhere.
The temporary structures are dismantled after the factory is built, and then moved to where extra capacity is needed.
Based on the plans, the Szeged container city will consist of two main parts. There will be a fenced part of the workers’ accommodation, which will consist of seven three-story container buildings with 34 units per floor. In this larger area, there will be two gates, a sports field, a fire water reservoir and a larger canteen, the latter complete with a kitchen.
The area promises to be very crowded, although the visual plans include some greenery, a smoking area and a parking lot. If two workers will be accommodated in one unit, as in the case of the Debrecen site, then up to 1,400 people can be accommodated in the temporary facility.
