Warsaw-Służewiec, elementary school - inner courtyard
proj.: WWAA, investor: Echo Investment
Edyta: Don't city dwellers become hostage to their own ideas? The construction of schools, recreational areas or roads can very easily become the subject of negotiations designed to ultimately enable the construction of exclusive housing units without a social resource.
James: Having a social resource is very important. There are many schemes of action and tools we can use to influence housing prices, but the sine qua non is to have a resource as such to manage it properly and create housing policy. The question of who will implement it and whether the State or the municipality has the competence and money for such purposes is a secondary question. Nevertheless, if the city does not have such capabilities, it is probably the best idea to have the resource realized by private entrepreneurs. One should also consider what really makes housing expensive. It is the availability of land, the demographic structure, the affluence of the wallets of the residents of the area, habits and ideas about how we want to live, but also the migration of residents.
Wojciech: It is true that the law can be applied to both social and commercial construction. However, it is worth noting here that it frees up some of the hitherto blocked giant urban sites with favorable locations, which are post-industrial, post-oil areas. This gives an opportunity to increase the number of apartments on the market, which will translate into their prices. The project brings profit not only to the investor, but also to the city, which gains a big relief in the budget thanks to the support of the private sector in the implementation of part of the tasks.
James: In addition, the cost of housing does not have to be 1/10th of the average salary. In 2014, McKinsey & Company published a report on affordable housing and how to achieve it, as well as the threshold in relation to average earnings. According to its estimates, 1/3 of average income is a general parameter for flexibility and applicability in most European countries. This value should be reflected in the cost of the plot of land, construction, and later the cost of maintaining the building. The problem of housing availability must be looked at globally instead of sticking to the thesis that cities or municipal companies should realize the housing stock. Everyone should have the right to do so, provided that the prices of popular housing are within 1/3 of income.
Warsaw-Służewiec, mixed-use space - environment
proj.: BBGK Architekci investor: ECHO Investment
Edyta: However, these will still be investments for a select part of the population. So aren't the costs of suburbanization being passed on to the poorer part of society?
James: This is a very broad problem. The idea of the law was born to facilitate the implementation of the Housing Plus program, which is ultimately a flop for the government. Few units were built, and the projected low price of housing was related to building them on land owned by state-owned companies or on municipal land that previously could not be counted as land for housing projects. As Wojtek already mentioned, the ULIM procedure is not all that simple. Very few resolutions have been passed in three years, and I don't think any have yet lived to see implementation.
Edyta: Let's go back to the speculative law itself. What are its tools for realizing better housing developments?
James: The biggest problem of suburbanization implemented on the basis of the WZ decision is the lack of access to basic social and recreational infrastructure. Many municipalities or cities still lack a comprehensive approach indicating areas where schools, for example, should be built, what funding for social projects should look like and where recreational areas can be located. In fact, I think that the very tool of the spec law can be considered more broadly than just in the context of residential development. I don't see why we couldn't realize, for example, a community center on a site designated in the local plan for a commercial facility of more than 2,000 square meters, and the plot belongs to the city or the municipality. I don't see why we couldn't organize school playgrounds on land earmarked for industry, even though the production present there to date has expired, and the local plan sanctions these functions. This can be done quickly, relatively cheaply and, above all, openly. On the other hand, what was the biggest deficit, that is, the lack of social services and the lack of access to public, leisure recreational space in this law was recognized and introduced, so I guess that's it.
Edyta: Local urban planning standards were introduced, the establishment and tightening of which depends on the goodwill of the municipality. Perhaps the spec law is a good solution in large cities, where enacting sharp forks won't scare off potential investors and even allow additional infrastructure to be built, but can you think similarly in the context of the country as a whole?
James: We are talking here about a solution that gives cities a tool to adopt resolutions according to their own standards. If a local authority has not set such, it is difficult to discuss whether they are too low or too high. I see no reason why each city could not reliably assess the feasibility of certain investments on the basis of a speculative law, and then translate its expectations into local urban planning standards that provide a guarantee of creating good urban planning and architecture in social consensus. Business expects stability and certainty in law, including local law.
Wojciech: The first projects proceeding in Warsaw based on the special law showed how important it is to introduce sufficiently broad public consultation. For this reason, the Office of Architecture and Spatial Planning of the City of Warsaw very quickly issued a special instruction on the standard of public consultation for such a proposal. Concepts that did not gain broad support were impossible to pass.
Warsaw-Służewiec, elementary school - entrance zone
proj.: WWAA, investor: Echo Investment
Edyta: The basic factor of local urban planning standards is the number of planned residents related to the amount of planned floor area of apartments. The number of residents determines proportionally the number of children and the size of recreational areas. Shouldn't this indicator rather refer to the planned structure of apartments, so that it would be a better reflection of the size of the settlement's population?
James: In a document of statutory rank, we have to use a certain averaging. If there are currently 28 square meters of residential space per capita in Poland, then such a conversion rate is as authoritative an indicator as possible. It should be remembered that there are cities where there is depopulation, and there are also those, albeit few, where the number of residents is increasing. In addition, the ways of living are changing, I mean new ways of renting, including short-term renting. Adopting a different indicator seems unjustified. In my opinion, in the current situation it is rational.
Edit: What about urban order? Do we stand a better chance of achieving it if we use the operational model of urban planning in its formation? Until now, its guarantor has been the local plan.
Wojciech:The urban form was often defined in plans passed almost two decades ago. Nowadays, plans are an expression of spatial policy: they define the parameters of development for individual plots and areas, regulate boundaries, and to a much lesser extent refer to urban composition. Thus, some kind of gap is created in the control of the city's spatial form and composition. The local plan doesn't quite provide the tools to reign in such aspects.
Edyta: It seems that, in the case of the spec, these issues depend fully - and only - on the ability and sensitivity of the designer.
Wojciech: The housing specs procedure is similar to local plans in many respects. However, it forces the presentation of very specific spatial solutions before the public. The city, through urban negotiations conducted during the administrative procedure, has a great many tools to control the form of the investment.
Warsaw-Służewiec, view of the inner courtyard of a residential development
proj.: BBGK Architekci investor: ECHO Investment
Edyta: The architectural and urban planning concept prepared for each application requires clarification of not only technical, but also architectural aspects. Its content consists of visualizations, diagrams, projections, sometimes mock-ups. All this constitutes a very clear and unambiguous declaration of the form and quality of the space. One looks in vain for such materials in the enactment of local plans.
Wojciech: There is another issue here. In the case of carrying out an investment on the basis of development conditions or a local plan, the fulfillment of all legal criteria forces the city to give its approval. In the case of speculative development, approval for a given form of space is ultimately given by the city council, the mayor and the architectural administrative bodies.
Edyta: While the spec law offers a lot of hope for rapidly changing cities into spaces that are friendlier to people and nature, it is still worth considering what the biggest threats, challenges the process brings.
James: One of them may be the specification in the characteristics of the investment of certain parameters, which will be difficult to implement at the final stage, especially with changing legislation. I also believe that a certain deficit is the limitation of the investor's ability to contribute to social investments for the realization of schools or recreation areas. The catalog could be expanded to include a library, community center or premises that can serve a social function. Of course, the law does not prohibit this, but the idea is that the city should have more opportunities to shape expectations of the investor. It also seems to me that the city should be more strongly involved in the consultation process of the project. The developer is a partner in this process, which many people approach with distrust, so in my opinion the city should be the guarantor that what is consulted is final, and that is what will be implemented.
Edyta: What observations do you take away from the processes of designing settlements under the housing specs law?
Wojciech: We are currently working on three such projects in different parts of Warsaw. Each of these projects is proof that they will not be feasible unless a broad consensus is reached at the planning stage about their form and how they will function. These are projects that must unite the goals of the investor, City Hall, councilors, the architecture bureau, city activists and individual neighborhoods. All of a sudden, design is the easiest part in this lengthy multi-stakeholder process. The most challenging part is to engage in dialogue, communicate with others and jointly develop solutions acceptable to all stakeholders. Perhaps this is the answer to the question of how the city of the future is to be created, understood as a structure implemented not by some narrow and influential groups, but in broad social consultation. Perhaps the specs law, being a tool for solving some fragmented goal, shows how the city design of the future should look like. Certainly, it is a difficult process, requiring mutual listening and discussion, the realization that you can't do anything your own way, quietly, so that no one will notice.
Edyta: Thank you for the interview!
interviewed by: Edyta Skiba
Wojciech KOTECKI - architect and urban planner, graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, SARP competition judge, member of the presidium of the KSK OW SARP. Academic teacher at the Faculty of Architecture, Warsaw University of Technology. Since 2014, co-owner of BBGK Architekci. Co-author of masterplans, residential complexes, high-rise buildings and public utilities.
The most important projects and realizations: the town hall of the municipality of Konstancin-Jeziorna, the prefabricated residential building on Sprzeczna Street in Warsaw, the multi-family building Mennica Residence in Warsaw, the masterplan of the Gdansk Shipyard - Young City (with Henning Larsen), the study design of the Warsaw Social District (in cooperation with BAiPP), the winning competition design for the teaching building of the University of Warsaw on Bednarska Street.
He was an architect at JEMS Architects until 2014. Together with JEMS: International Congress Center in Katowice, Górczewska Park housing estate, Generation Park high-rise building, 19th District complex in Warsaw.
Jakub HECIAK - IARP architect, SARP, urban planner and academic teacher, graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Cracow University of Technology. Architect at BBGK Architekci, where he is co-responsible for the preparation of two projects under the housing speculative law. He is also active in research and teaching at the Kielce University of Technology, and his main area of interest is urban planning and housing. He is a competition judge of SARP Kielce branch and a laureate of architectural competitions. In 2015, at WA PK, he defended his doctoral thesis on the quality of the residential environment in social housing, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at ETH Zurich. He is actively involved in social activities within SARP.
