Large, functional residential complexes with plenty of greenery and necessary infrastructure are the domain of architecture, which in our country was mainly created before 1989. Contemporary multi-family housing developed with the participation of developers may not always represent a similar level, and not infrequently is also unable to create a coherent urban fabric. This is the fault not only of market mechanisms, but also of the lack of appropriate planning tools. To create a real city from the developer patchwork, the instruments that have become the leitmotif of the report entitled "Special Residential Zones. The role of cities in shaping comprehensive residential areas". The IRMiR's Urban Policy Observatory, which acted in cooperation with Monika Arczynska and Lukasz Pancewicz of the A2P2 Architecture & Planning studio, is responsible for preparing the document.
The report prepared by the IRMiR points to the most important problems in the Polish housing market, focusing primarily on the spatial dimension of urban development. One of the factors leading to the current housing crisis is, paradoxically, the local oversupply of land for residential development, which is concentrated primarily in smaller towns and on the outskirts of larger urban centers. There, suburban enclaves are being created, which, despite attractive prices, face numerous infrastructure problems, also costing Polish society a lot of money.
Special residential zones. The role of cities in shaping comprehensive residential areas
© made available courtesy of the IRMiR
Instead,in the centers of large cities, where the availability of land for development is severely limited , scattered developments are being built in the form of one or a few buildings, not infrequently in the form of housing specs. Although consistent with the provisions of local plans or the study (and, in the future, with the General Plan), they often do not lead to the creation of compact, functional residential districts and, despite the best intentions, the development they create turns out to be chaotic. How to remedy this?
A jigsaw puzzle from which a picture will not emerge
The remedy for the low supply of land for residential development in large cities was supposed to be the housing specs law, which will soon be replaced by ZPIs. These are the tools through which a plethora of investments have been or will be created, patching holes in the urban fabric in a spotty manner. Despite the prolonged investment process, consulted with local governments, in the areas where the constructions are being built, they do not always have the character of model realizations, especially from a broader, urban planning perspective. But is it possible to make the projects carried out under these, and other tools for urban transformation, weave a coherent fabric into a real city? The answer to this problem may lie in Special Housing Zones, areas covered by a specific legal status that allows local government bodies to coordinate private investment.
Special Housing Zones. The role of cities in shaping comprehensive housing areas
© made available courtesy of the IRMiR
Special Housing Zone is a good deal
Special Housing Zones would be areas to be created primarily on land owned by the State Treasury or its companies that is not currently being developed effectively. These could be, for example, areas that formerly housed industrial facilities, ports, military or railroad infrastructure. It is the intention of the authors and the report's author that they could be acquired more easily and preferentially by municipalities through the designation of SSM preceded by a thorough analysis of the housing needs of the municipality in question. If the acquisition of such land was indeed in the interest of the local government's housing policy, the transaction would become possible. Proper identification of needs would thus become a brake on urban sprawl and uncontrolled development on the outskirts of smaller urban centers. The establishment of a Special Housing Zone could also help municipalities acquire land with an unsettled legal status - currently the easiest way to do this is to invest in public infrastructure, which does not work favorably in the context of housing development.
Special housing zones. The role of cities in shaping comprehensive residential areas
© made available courtesy of IRMiR
urban toolbox
At the same time, Special Housing Zones would make extensive use of already existing legal tools.
SSM is not intended to replace ULIM, ZPI or the classic form of local plan, but to serve to coordinate the processes of development of the urban fabric of the city, leading to increased housing availability. It is intended to be an instrument aimed at active land management and public land development activities
- reads the IRMiR report
An important change that occurs in relation to the aforementioned tools is the transfer of the initiative from the private entity to the local government. In the case of ZPI or lex developer, it is the developer who notifies the intention to interfere with the local plan. With the designation of Special Residential Zones , the municipality first prepares an appropriate plan for the development of the area, develops it with the necessary infrastructure, and then announces a call for entities interested in conducting investments there. As a result, complex urban assumptions could be created, with large scale and high functionality, which in Polish cities are more the domain of estates built before 89 than of modern developments. However, there may be other benefits from the introduction of Special Housing Zones.
Special Housing Zones. The role of cities in shaping comprehensive housing areas
© made available courtesy of the IRMiR
two birds with one stone
Poland is in a deep housing crisis, this is an undeniable fact. Extremely high prices for units on the primary market are only one side of the coin. The other is the ailing social housing. It is likely that not everyone will be able to afford to buy their own place, no matter how much (or if at all) the prices of apartments built by developers fall. The apartments that are in the resources of Polish municipalities are currently scarce, many of them in very poor condition. The concept of Special Housing Zones proposes a solution to reconcile the interests of investors and municipalities, which should provide their residents with a full spectrum of housing options - including those available to the poorer part of society.
When creating SSMs, a municipality should determine to what extent it will carry out its housing policy tasks in its area. The specific share of social housing should be determined on a zone-by-zone basis, but nevertheless a minimum value should be adopted due to the possible linkage of government support. In an optimal scenario, the zone would allow the introduction of a housing mix, i.e. the creation of a neighborhood of private housing with social rental housing.
- reads the report.
Where will municipalities get the funds for this, when even now they are unable to build an adequate amount of housing for their communities?
The implementation of SSM should go hand in hand with a government program to allow subsidies for communal housing, infrastructure investment and facilitating the acquisition (communalization) of Treasury land.
- write the authors and authors of the report.
This coincides with assurances coming from the Ministry of Development and Technology, which in mid-February, already after the publication of the report discussed in this text, announced the creation of the government's "Key to Housing" program. As part of it, by 2025 Poland is to allocate PLN 2.5 billion for communal and social housing, a record high in recent decades. However, financial resources are not enough - to ensure that the funds are not squandered, effective management is needed, and this can be achieved through appropriate tools, such as the Special Housing Zones proposed by the IRMiR.
Miasteczko Wilanów is one of the large residential complexes developed in Poland in recent years
Photo: emptywords © CC-BY SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
commission and housing grant a remedy for shortages
How could new housing be created that is more affordable? First, the investor on the portion of the land transferred for development could be the municipality itself or companies subsidized with public money, such as TBS or SIM. The improvement of a municipality's housing market can also take place through actions that a private investor will be obliged to take. Here the authors and the project's author point to two ways that are used in some European countries.
The first is the commission - under which the developer is obliged to transfer a certain number of apartments to the municipal stock. This practice is used in Austria, England or France, among others. The second option, slightly less radical from the investor's point of view, on the other hand, is the so-called housing grant. In this option, a private developer makes available an agreed-upon number of units for rent or sale at a predetermined, below-market price to the municipality.
In return, developers could get not only access to attractive land for development, but also count on facilitations in carrying out investments, for example, by speeding up the issuance of administrative decisions.
Nowe Żerniki is a model example of the local government's "land development" activities
Photo: Kamil Czaiński © CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
wrocław model to follow
Despite the fact that appropriate legal tools are not in place in Poland, the creation of large-scale urban complexes with a residential function is possible. The authors and the author of the report confront the results of their research with an extensive selection of case studies in the form of both completed housing complex projects and assumptions that are currently only in the planning stage. They have selected examples of the largest housing assumptions developed in recent decades in Polish cities. Among settlements such as Młode Miasto in Gdansk, Miasteczko Wilanów or Gdynia Zachód, Wroclaw's Nowe Żerniki comes to the fore.
The action of the local government as a public "land developer" was a model here. The decision to build a housing development was followed by the process of creating a masterplan, developing a plan and starting to sell the developed land. Ownership of the land and ownership of the development concept allowed considerable influence on the final shape and quality of the housing development. The involvement of the Wroclaw Branch of the Association of Polish Architects and practicing architects, allowed the development of proposals that were realistic and took into account the conditions of commercial construction of apartments. At the concept stage, the designers worked socially.
New Żerniki, however, is an exception. For similar projects to be carried out on a larger scale in the country, appropriate legal tools are needed, such as the Special Residential Zones proposed in the report. You can learn more about them by reading the report, published in full on the IRMiR's Urban Policy Observatory website.
