journalism from the 7/8 2021 issue of A&B
The new housing proposals found in the Polish Lada are surprising to me. I read them as a direct response to pandemonium aimed at the voter who is tired of sitting in an apartment. It's a shame that we will be facing the negative effects of these proposals long after the covid closure is forgotten for good.
The draft of the Polish Deal on the housing issue has brought two major proposals: facilitating the independent construction of small single-family homes and a return to subsidized loans. Both proposals are, for now, very vague and their details cannot be discussed, but it is worrying to see the direction the current government is turning in indicating housing policy assumptions.
Among the previous proposals that were announced as part of the Housing Plus program and included in the National Housing Program document that is still in force, there was an important message that there was a need to develop the rental housing sector. Although weakened somewhat by a nod to the polls, i.e. the possibility of access to ownership, it was still the first step in a long time in a decidedly good direction. This makes it all the more unfortunate that the changes proposed this time are a step backward.
Apartment plus - competition for the concept of a housing development on Ratuszowa Street in Warsaw, 2020
first place: architectural office BE DDJM Architekci
© BE DDJM Architects
However, to answer the question of which housing policy steps lead in the right direction and which in the wrong direction, it is necessary to name the problem we are trying to deal with. The prevailing view in the public debate is that Poland's housing problem is primarily a lack of housing. The prevailing idea seems to be that building new housing - no matter what kind, where or by whom - will solve the housing problem. In support of this thesis, the number of housing units per thousand residents is usually pointed out, and it is emphasized that Poland (about 388/1,000) fares much worse than, for example, Germany (about 511/1,000). Following this pattern, successive governments, and further the authorities of successive cities, act with the idea of increasing the number of new apartments, treating the quantitative determinant as superior and providing sufficient justification for their decisions. No one looks at the fact that the highest number of apartments per thousand residents in Europe can be boasted by Portugal (581/1000), where for several years there has been a sizable housing crisis.
Mieszkanie plus - competition for the concept of a housing estate on Ratuszowa Street in Warsaw, 2020
first place: architectural office BE DDJM Architekci
© BE DDJM Architects
In Poland, on the other hand, precisely as a result of the quantitative approach, we have facilitated the de-landing of land, facilitated the construction of housing outside the validity of local development plans, scaled local plans and studies of the conditions and directions of spatial development of municipalities. The latter by more than six times. As already pointed out a decade ago in the report of the Building Congress on the Economic Losses and Social Costs of Uncontrolled Urbanization, the demographic absorption of land for housing is estimated at 229 million people. Meanwhile, Poland has a population of less than 38 million and has been losing them steadily since 1999.
Quantitative housing policy is yielding results! Quantitative... The number of housing units put into use is growing. In 2020 it reached a record 221,000 new housing units - a similar number was last achieved in 1980, that is, still with the help of central planning and industrialized technologies. But has the housing problem diminished as a result of this staggering number?
On the contrary. The housing problem is greater this year than at any time since 1989 - because along with the number of housing units, the price of housing units has also increased at a record rate. For the first time since 2008 - when we were dealing with the effects of the global crisis that began with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. - a square meter of new housing costs more than 1.5 average salaries. On top of that, in 2020 - as part of the effects of the coronavirus - the Gini coefficient rose to 2016 levels after several years of decline. This means that inequality in the distribution of income has increased, and thus the availability of housing has further decreased. During the covid crisis, the wealthy, who don't have a problem with housing anyway, gained, while the poorest lost, so the purchasing power of a group that already had no chance to buy an apartment, even with credit, fell.
Mieszkanie plus - competition for the concept of a housing estate between Zatorska and Odolanowska Streets in Wrocław, 2020
first place: architectural office BE DDJM Architekci
© BE DDJM Architects
When I read the statistics on the number and price of housing in 2020, in addition to the obvious concern, I also felt a bit of joy and hope. In black and white we got proof of the ineffectiveness (counter-effectiveness) of quantitative housing policy and the incompatibility of the simplest market mechanisms of supply and demand with the housing issue. After all, in a crisis situation, when purchasing power, i.e. demand, fell, and the number of housing units, i.e. supply, increased, instead of a decrease we got a price increase!
The housing problem - which in the socio-economic system currently adopted is actually a permanent condition and for this reason constantly needs support - is always composed of three deficiencies: the number, quality and availability of housing. In Poland after 1989, we are mainly concerned with the issue of quantity, which has led to a massive spillover of chaotic development into non-urbanized areas, a decline in the quality of housing and housing areas, and the commoditization and financialization of the housing sector. It is these last two phenomena that are responsible for the simultaneous increase in the number and price of housing.
Mieszkanie plus - competition for the concept of a housing estate between Zatorska and Odolanowska streets in Wroclaw, 2020
first place: architectural office BE DDJM Architekci
© BE DDJM Architects
Poland, while pursuing a policy of growth, systematically retreated from pursuing a policy of supporting housing quality and availability. After the transformation, it was recognized that the quality of housing would be effectively taken care of by the free market. More than thirty years later, it is clear that the thinking justified in the early 1990s does not work in practice. The financed free housing market puts PUM above the quality of average housing development. Since every meter of housing regardless of quality will find a buyer, there is no reason to do more than necessary. What is indispensably necessary is established by regulations such as building law, technical conditions and urban planning norms.... Which we gave up long ago, because the free market!
About the availability of housing the free market does not care even more, which is not surprising, after all, the role of entrepreneurs is not to fight for social justice, but to make money. As a result, our property-dominated housing market is characterized by a roughly forty percent rent gap. That is, about 40 percent of the population is too rich for public housing and too poor for credit. To answer the question posed at the beginning - this is currently the most important part of the housing problem that we need to deal with the fastest.
Mieszkanie plus - competition for the concept of a housing estate between Zatorska and Odolanowska streets in Wroclaw, 2020
first place: architectural office BE DDJM Architekci
© BE DDJM Architects
In such a context, the direction of the proposals that appeared in the Polish Laden in mid-May 2021 is surprising. Subsidized loans are adding oil to an already very heated real estate market. Experience with previous subsidy actions, such as Mieszkanie dla młodych and Rodzina na swoim, indicates that their effect is ultimately to increase housing prices, as the market adjusts to the public's purchasing capacity. If developers already have absolutely no problem selling every apartment still at the hole-in-the-ground stage, it's not hard to guess how they will react to the extra money on the buyers' side. More money pumped into the housing market will in the end benefit the financial sector the most: banks will be able to extend more loans, and new apartments will quickly become part of the codified real estate market, losing their importance as part of social policy. Subsidized loans are, after all, another mechanism for supporting the owner-occupied housing sector, which already accounts for the vast majority in Poland.
The second proposal - facilitation of house construction - would worry much less if it were accompanied by solutions that would see new houses built as part of sustainable urban units, rather than as a patchwork development. There is no value in the sheer complexity of the building permit process. A 100-page architectural and construction project with a million stamps and appendices alone does not translate into quality development, as we have ample evidence of. The idea to activate the grassroots potential of the community would be great, if only the framework for its development was well defined. In the current planning situation, it will only exacerbate the negative trends of urban sprawl and building houses without access to technical and social infrastructure, and without public space. Another incentive for non-urban development, from which its residents will suffer in the end.
In the aforementioned Portugal, the housing crisis led to the enactment of the right to housing as a basic human right in 2019. It looks like setting the right priorities years later will improve the housing situation for average Portuguese, as some seeds of change are already visible. I'm curious to see how deep the crisis has to go in Poland for us to decide to take similar steps as well. For now, as always, they have acted symptomatically, giving Poles tired of sitting in small apartments the hope of building their own house with a garden. Unfortunately, along the way the symptoms were misdiagnosed.
