September marked one year since the loosening of regulations on parcel machines. The devices are filling more niches and becoming a great challenge for space managers. They are already even forming fences of properties in villa neighborhoods. On the necessary regulations, Poznań social activists are therefore intervening at the parliamentary level with MP Hanna Gill-Piątek.
Much has been written over the past year about the threat of "parcelomatosis," aptly comparing automatic devices to freestanding walls dividing space at random. Recently, reducing the issue to a bitter absurdity, satirist Andrzej Rysuje illustrated a wall of parcel machines erected by the Polish authorities along the border - in the role of a barrier against refugees.
In a serious tone earlier this year, members of Warsaw's City Is Ours association protested against the uncontrolled growth of parcel machines. Successful actions against parcel-machine free America were carried out in Sopot in areas covered by a conservation zone. Similarly, in Wrocław's Biskupin, where a very long parcel machine stood in front of a property fence. The fight is difficult, however, because for the past year construction law has not required building permits or notifications for parcel machines and other automatic devices up to three meters high. It is also not very clear whether and how parcel machines can be included in the provisions of local landscape resolutions.
narrow and dangerous
Theissue of parcel machines is now being sought to becivilized by more community activists, this time from Poznan, where one of the "cabinets" is not so much creating a new wall, but has become part of an existing fence, similar to what happened last year in Biskupin in Wroclaw. Standing on a private plot, the parcel machine replaced part of the fence around a property in the villa-like part of the Grunwald district with modernist houses from the 1930s and 1950s. Unlike in the case of Wroclaw, where there was a lot of open space in front of the already removed device, the Poznan parcel machine was located on the very narrow Podkomorska street. Thus, it has not only adversely affected aesthetics in the immediate vicinity of the area of 1930s buildings protected by the conservator, but raises concerns about increased traffic on the local street, pedestrian safety and wild parking on the sidewalks by couriers and parcel collectors. The heavily illuminated device significantly increases light pollution in the intimate neighborhood. Such concerns are formulated by community activists from the district's Abyssinian Residents' Association.
We are not enemies of parcel machines, we use them ourselves and recognize their advantages and logistical and environmental benefits. However, we call for systemic regulations and protection of common space," says Anna Sasiak-Patkowska, an architect and CEO of the Abyssinia Residents' Association. Half-jokingly, she spreads a somewhat abstract but grounded vision in which most of the fences of the intimate neighborhood are adorned with parcel machines, ATMs and similar devices of this type.
deputy will take up the subject
Abyssinian activists are acting in two ways. Locally, they have taken an interest in the matter with the city's conservation officer and aesthetics commissioner. At the national level, they have sent a letter to MP Hanna Gill-Piątek, who is highly regarded for her commitment to urban development, revitalization and architecture . They are asking her to take up the topic during one of the sittings of the Parliamentary Committee on Infrastructure. The parliamentarian comments on the appeal:
The issue of parcel machines requires deep thought. On the one hand - they make our lives much easier, as was evident during the pandemic, and on the other hand they can cause chaos, not only aesthetically, but above all functionally. It will be difficult or even impossible to introduce very precise restrictions, such as the requirement to locate devices next to a certain number of parking spaces, but - indeed - some regulation is needed. This is therefore a good topic to address during the committee meeting and take the matter further," says Gill-Piątek.
Work on meaningful regulations is needed right away. Otherwise, developing somewhat abstract visions of the development of "parcelomatosis," we will probably live to see single-story houses, the walls of which will be one big parcel machine allowing, for example, to pay off the loan taken out for construction.
