Tomas Bata decided to build new housing and did this as a suburb of Otrokovice. Otrokovice was an old town which had been in existance for over 800 years. Tomas decided to build his housing on a marshy area between two rivers. He came up with a very unconventional technical solution.

With the help of water pumps he drifted water into the surrounding hills and then he floated soil down from the hills. This gave him additional space for his expansion of production as well as for more housing for his workers.

He then built from the ground up, the architecture was to be similar to Zlin and he called this part of town Batov.