Activists are fighting for it, most city residents want it, as well as many local government officials. Despite this, we still fail to crack down on the littering of public space by (often illegal) advertisements.
In mid-September 2019, at the SARP Exhibition Pavilion in Warsaw, a conference was held titled. "Protection and Shaping of Public Spaces." The meeting, organized by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in cooperation with the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning and the Society of Polish Urban Planners, was aimed at leaning into the issue of the quality of Polish public spaces - their better shaping and protection - as well as exchanging experiences and reflections on grassroots, as well as local government actions, related to the operation of the so-called Landscape Law passed in 2015.
Advertising chaos in Warsaw
photo: Anna Cymer
fond hopes
An entire session was devoted to the law, with which many opponents of advertising chaos had high hopes. It was attended by representatives of local governments, which have implemented the act in their areas, cities that are working on it, but also a representative of the Ministry of Investment and Development, where work is underway on new regulations, which the recently existing act... actually abolishes. The speech by Lukasz Marciniak of the Spatial Policy Department of the Ministry of Investment and Development, by the way, set the tone for the entire session. After the official presented a rather negative opinion of the current Landscape Act and announced that, according to the new regulations, the presence of advertisements will be regulated only by provisions in local development plans, virtually all other speeches were just an attempt to prove that the Landscape Act in its current form makes sense and can be effective.
Advertising chaos in Gdansk
photo: Anna Cymer
Sopot - a city without advertising
Among others, Sopot has introduced the Landscape Act in its area. The city's deputy mayor, Marcin Skwierawski, who was present at the conference, explained that although the rules for locating advertisements had long been written into local plans by the Sopot authorities, such a method of organizing space is not very effective, if only because enforcement of fines in the case of illegal media is minimal, and fines are ridiculously low (thanks to the Landscape Act, fines can be much more severe, and therefore effective). Thanks to the Landscape Law, it was easier to crack down on advertisements littering the resort, as anyone visiting the seaside resort can see. This is one of the cities where the lack of advertisements is striking (we have become so accustomed to their presence that it is rather their absence that draws attention).
Nysa landscape code
Among the many Polish cities and municipalities that have successfully adapted the provisions of the Landscape Act to their needs, Nysa is leading the way. In 2018, a so-called landscape code was created there, preceded by opinion polls (72 percent of residents wanted immediate changes in the landscape and as many as 78 percent expressed a negative opinion of the ads present in the city) and an inventory of carriers (most of the nine thousand carriers counted turned out to be illegal). The city was divided into zones with varying degrees of protection from advertising. A code of good practice was created, a systematics of types of media (signs, semaphores, neon signs, coffers, window stickers, etc.), for which regulations were developed regarding size, color or materials. It was forbidden to obscure monuments or tape up storefronts, and LED media advertising was eliminated. All these new regulations were made possible by the Landscape Law, and their introduction in the city was preceded by educational activities, largely concerning the owners of the media.
Non-obligatory act
The Landscape Act in each city or municipality requires individual implementation - Gdansk and Zakopane, among others, are working on adapting it to their needs. Representatives of these cities stressed its advantages and effectiveness, primarily in terms of enforcing penalties for illegal media, which dominate our landscape. It is worth noting that the application of the law is not obligatory - it depends on the goodwill of local authorities, on the willingness of the rulers to put the advertising chaos in order.
Advertising chaos in Lublin
photo: Anna Cymer
voices of opposition
Interestingly, despite the fact that the majority of city residents - as shown by numerous surveys - oppose the profusion of advertising in public space, the owners of media and those who make money on advertising seem to fight much louder for their rights than the majority, overwhelmed by advertising chaos. Voices of opposition to cleaning up the issue are so effective that there are even calls for... the necessity of paying compensation to owners of advertising carriers who, as a result of the application of the Landscape Law, can no longer make money on them.
Advertising chaos in Kielce
photo: Anna Cymer
gloomy conclusions
The tumultuous session at the Warsaw conference left grim conclusions. There is no agreement at the highest levels of government to effectively clean up the advertising chaos, and there are also still few local government officials who are willing to do the hard, nerve-wracking work of "cleaning up" the advertisements in their areas, even using the provisions of the Landscape Act (its introduction is associated with lawsuits, protests, opposition from media owners or, for example, housing communities that rent building walls for ads). And worst of all, with the Ministry of Investment and Development planning to amend the law (i.e., throwing the Landscape Law in the trash), the advanced work of many cities on its implementation may simply go to waste.
