At the very end of Poland, where the Baltic Sea begins and the land ends, a battle is being fought over the limits of interference with nature. The Hel Peninsula, one of the most naturally valuable areas of the Polish coast, has become the arena of a dispute between residents and an investor planning to build the Hel Happiness complex. At stake is the cutting down of more than 400 trees and the degradation of areas occupied by hundreds of bird species, including many protected ones. Will the residents stop the investor?
How far can some go in the name of profit? It turns out, all the way to the very edge of Poland, and more specifically to the Hel Peninsula, where the Gasten company intends to build a multifunctional, year-round tourist complex called Hel Happiness. After the Hotel in Pobierowo and many other buildings on the Polish coast that should never have been built, attention has now turned to the Hel Spit. What else will be built on the Polish seaside?
Hel Happiness - who designed the buildings?
Although the topic only became public in June, when Hel released information about the investment in the Public Information Bulletin, and the Pomeranian Wyborcza reported on it.everything was reported by Pomorskie Wyborcza, the application for a Building Permit for plots numbered 35/19 and 577/2 was already submitted on November 17, 2023. The applicant is Adrian Lipinski, chairman of the board of Gasten Sp.o.o., which is the investor, and the name of the construction project for a building object other than a single-family house is:
Construction of the HEL HAPPINESS Health Revitalization Center, a building with apartments for rent and a multi-story garage with the necessary accompanying infrastructure
The person who signed off on the concept, and perhaps the author of the project, is Andrzej Tolkin, a Tri-City architect who has been running the Atol-studio studio since 1991. Not much is known about its realizations, on the web you can find information about architectural competitions in which it unsuccessfully competed.
What will the Hel Happiness complex look like?
The project, which, according to the Main Office of Construction Supervision, was prepared by Andrey Tolkin, has never been presented in detail, but in social media and on the investor's website one can see visualizations and an animation prepared back in 2018 by the visualization studio BA ARCHITEKTURA. According to the materials presented, the Hel Happinness Hotel is to be not one, but a complex of five buildings with commercial and residential functions and a multi-story parking lot.
The video shows multi-story buildings with rounded corners and facades preceded by balconies stretching their entire lengths, partially obscured by wood-colored laths. The buildings on the visualizations have green roofs, the "greenery" - carefully curated by man, replacing the valuable natural stand of the Hel Peninsula - is also located between the individual volumes.
The Hel Happiness resort is to be built on this site
A seaside resort in exchange for the felling of 400 trees
Prior to the issuance of the Building Permit, which took place in April 2024, the developer received Conditions of Development and a positive decision on the cutting down of trees "interfering" with the facilities it intends to build. It is the announcement of the devastation of the natural environment, located within the Seaside Landscape Park, that has - rightly - heated up public opinion and turned the gaze of Internet users towards the Hel Headland. Happiness Hel is to be located in an area densely covered with a stand of trees, in view of which 433 trees would have to be cut down. According to the approvals obtained, activities could begin as soon as the nesting season ends, i.e. on October 15, 2025.
When Gazeta Wyborcza alerted the public about the problem in June of this year, resistance quickly began to form - a public initiative was created, and even a petition signed by more than 25,000 people.
Paving the way for five-story buildings and multi-story parking lots, old birches, oaks, maples, lindens, pines and alders will go under the axe. The Pomeranian acidophilous birch-oak forest will be cut down, wetlands and peat bogs and many other natural habitats will be destroyed.
- reads the petition.
The authors, followed by the signatories, demand not only the reversal of the issued decisions, but also the establishment of a forest nature reserve on the Hel Peninsula.
local government twist
The document was sent to Donald Tusk - who, after all, comes from the nearby Tricity - but so far has not met with a response from the prime minister. Instead, the local government has reacted. As of the date of writing, the Local Government Appeal Board appealed two decisions issued by the mayor of Hel - the one on the construction of the Hel Happiness complex and a permit to cut down over 400 trees in the Seaside Landscape Park and Natura 2000 area.
The [...] College decided to suspend the implementation of the two aforementioned decisions. After collecting the necessary material, the College will assess as to possible qualified violations of the law in issuing them
- informed TVN service on the basis of a communiqué sent to the editorial board.
The Local Government Appeals Board is a body of second instance, which, among other things, has jurisdiction to review decisions issued by mayors. So far, the investor has gone through all procedures without any problems. Will the step taken by the SKO help save the trees on the Hel Peninsula? And - just as importantly - will the devastation of the Polish coast finally end?
