Article fromA&B issue05|2023
The state and local governments in Poland are building too few apartments? After all, you can find plenty of information about new investments on the websites of more authorities. If it's so good, why is it so bad? An architect, a social activist and a local government official talk about the role of the public investor and the condition of housing construction in Poland.
The discussion about the current condition of housing construction in Poland resembles a nobleman's sejm from the pre-partition Republic. Everyone is throating their or their patron's cause, trying to shout down the adversaries. On the one hand, we hear more voices denouncing pat-development and the passivity of the authorities, who do too little to curb it. On the other, we have developers claiming that people want small apartments, and that the high price guarantees that they are buying a premium product. Successive politicians, depending on the option they represent, opt for state housing or demand more (even more?) freedom for the private sector. We will increase credit subsidies," promise some, while their political opponents boast about the effects of implemented programs, which in turn are criticized by the former and are said to prove the ineffectiveness of all state initiatives. The only thing missing is someone who, amid all the uproar, would shout "liberum veto" and stop the discussion. What's missing is that most Poles are beside the point in this discussion - waiting in lines for communal housing or paying the next installments for privately owned apartments built by private developers.
The Mieszkanie Plus program has brought results in the form of developments of high architectural quality (Katowice, Łowicz or Kępice), but at the same time it has highlighted many problems. State institutions proved to be unprepared to carry out investments. Limited possibilities in disposing of land led to situations such as the one in Katowice, where a piece of forest was cleared for a new housing development. The same problem, by the way, also arises in the case of the Lokal za Grunt law, which assumes that on land donated by a municipality a developer erects a housing development and gives back the equivalent of a parcel of land in apartments. The idea itself seems worthy, but... first you have to have the right land for construction, and with this, as we are finding out, things are sometimes different.
In 2018, under the Housing Plus program, the prime minister promised to start construction of 100,000 apartments within a year. Meanwhile, by the end of 2022, only 19,000 units had been built (another 31,500 were under construction). This is a drop in the ocean of needs. The situation of housing construction at the regional level is similar. Polish municipalities are building very little. As the CSO reported, in 2021 they started construction of only 1,056 housing units (a year earlier - 839). Local governments are doing much better at selling what was built earlier. In 2019-2020 alone, municipalities disposed of more than 34,000 units. Such short-sighted policies, calculated to pursue immediate goals and patch budget holes the easy way, perpetuate the unfavorable status quo.
The communal barrier-free block at 30 Dickmana Street in Gdynia is supposed to be a friendly living environment for all groups of residents; one should wonder why there are so few similar realizations
photo: © Social Innovation Laboratory
does housing (not) pay off?
When asked why local governments don't build (or almost don't build) housing, Urszula Niziołek-Janiak, a social and local government activist associated with Lodz for more than a dozen years, answers briefly:
Because it doesn't pay off for them financially or electorally. We don't demand it of them. The construction of municipal and social housing has not been a priority of any authorities since the political transformation. This also applied to local authorities," he adds. - For years, the state has not effectively supported the development of housing cooperatives, the implementation of housing by cooperatives or local government renovations, dumping this task on EU funds, banks and private developers. In addition, the spatial planning loophole that emerged after 2001 has resulted in constant changes in urban spaces, making it difficult to invest wisely.
Urban sprawl and urban sprawl, on the one hand, and the selling off of local government-owned resources in the form of housing and land, on the other, have contributed to a situation in which it has become increasingly difficult for public entities to make much-needed housing investments. Successive government programs have supported the developer market and the banking sector (for example, by subsidizing contributions), instead of stimulating the construction of new housing by the state or local governments.
Niziołek-Janiak points out that:
expanding the municipal stock has lost the support of a large part of the electorate. Why? Low rent collection and huge debts of some tenants, in turn, meant that the odium of a handout, rather than a fuse and regulator of the market, fell on this area of government tasks. People who had to provide a place to live with their own funds thus ceased to see the links between housing prices, rental costs and the flexible urban housing module.
The activist warns, however, against a zero-sum picture of reality. Not all cities wash their hands of building public housing.
Częstochowa, Gostynin, Zielona Góra or Warsaw are building new apartments, she lists. - Certainly not enough in relation to the needs of poorer residents, but they are building.
The aforementioned Gostynin has the largest number of apartments built in Poland per 1,000 residents - 27.5. In comparison, in Lodz (much larger than Gostynin) it is only 3.8 apartments per 1,000 residents. The city authorities justified themselves by saying that they are "the largest tenement in Poland" and do not need to increase their stock of apartments.
Niziołek-Janiak describes these words as "utter nonsense."
For many years, the hope of increasing the number of apartments in Lodz was provided by revitalization, but it is being done at the expense of neglecting the rest of the housing stock and transferring apartments for commercial lease, she criticizes the city's flagship initiative. The construction of new apartments "pays off in the capital, but supposedly not in Lodz," he adds with a wry smile.
The estate on the Prosna River in Kalisz was designed in the spirit of "biophilic design" and is expected to set the stage for transformations in the city's architecture
© todos.architekci
priorities of the municipality
A positive example that proves that thoughtful housing policy can also be carried out in large centers is Gdynia. Michal Guć, Gdynia's vice mayor for innovation, protests when he hears that "local governments in Poland are not building."
The situation is not that bad. There are tools available, i.e. funds that allow local governments to build housing," he says. - he says, then adds that of course there are also problems. Interestingly, they are not related to the lack of funds that have been provided, but to the failure to change the "philosophy of the municipal resource." Local governments, even if they raise funds for investment, must find money to subsidize the cost of maintaining the resource. In the current situation, when municipalities have been deprived of billions in tax revenues, this is very difficult.
Among Gdynia's developments, the building at 30 Dickmana St. stands out. The modest three-story block designed by 3MA is a vivid illustration of the local government's priorities when it comes to housing.
The municipality's concern should be to be able to take care of those residents who, for various reasons, are unable to provide housing on their own," says Michal Guć and describes activities that go beyond the construction of new blocks of apartments themselves. However, we believe that handing over the keys to the premises is not the only method. That's why in Gdynia, in addition to carrying out tasks related to municipal housing, we focus on projects that help residents rent apartments on the commercial market. This is how we support alumni of foster care facilities (orphanages), people coming out of homelessness or, most recently, refugees from Ukraine.
The building at 30 Dickmana Street was built in the Oksywie district, whose revitalization is coordinated byGdynia's Social Innovation Laboratory. This is important because, unlike in many cases where "revitalization" simply means renovation and aesthetics, LIS prepared both architectural and social policy guidelines to support the establishment of a true neighborhood community.
We wanted to create a space that would also promote independence for the elderly or people with disabilities," Guć stressed, adding that LIS is working on another barrier-free block. Watching the effects of the activities, one would like to applaud the Gdynia local government. The only "but" concerns the numbers - after all, we are talking about just one block.
Intimate blocks of flats with simple forms are an example of architecture that is economical, while presenting a high level of functional, aesthetic and pro-environmental solutions.
© todos.architekci
city and TBS set the course
Anyone who remembers the first TBSes has before his or her eyes an architecture that is frugal and usually quite bland. Meanwhile, the housing development under construction on the Prosna River in Kalisz proves that "modern" does not have to mean "expensive," and architects and local government officials are familiar with the idea that public housing should be a model of good practice. Co-author of the project, architect Jakub Chrzanowski of todos.architekci studio, believes that:
public investors, like local governments or the state, bear responsibility for the investments they make and should be guided not only by economic benefits, but also by social and environmental ones. Emphasis on environmentally friendly solutions and the appropriate level of architecture from the social housing sector can have a key influence on the directions of construction from the private sector.
In the case of the Kalisz housing development, the very form of design choice was surprising. Instead of a tender, which is the bane of many architects, a competition was announced. Even though the budget was very modest (the prize pool - only 5,000 zlotys), it still yielded better results than in most cases where the design-build formula is used. A big influence on this was probably the mayor of Kalisz himself.
The city is very fortunate because the mayor is an architect, Krystian Kinastowski. It was he who, in consultation with TBS president Andrzej Górski, came up with the initiative to organize an architectural competition, says Chrzanowski.
The winning design by todos.architekci, according to the organizers' guidelines, combines aesthetic, economic and ecological aspects. Designed in the spirit of "Biophilic design," the complex refers respectfully to the existing situation (preserving the tree stand, exposing the line of the Prosna River), and the architecture itself is simple and functional. Chrzanowski hopes that the completed concept will become a model for new developments in the industrial part of Kalisz (Piskorzewie) - "the construction is to be the first stage of change and may set the right direction for future developments in the area."
The Kalisz housing estate on the Prosna River will be built in cooperation between the City and TBS; interestingly, the project was selected through a competition, which undoubtedly had a positive impact on its quality
© todos.architekci
time for change
If it's so good, why is it so bad? - one would like to ask. Only that... it is difficult to find someone who would unequivocally positively assess the current situation. After all, it's hard to be satisfied when local governments sell more than they build, and ambitious programs initiated by the central government are implemented to a very limited extent. At the same time, the cited examples show that actions taken by the public investor can yield positive results, and the problem is often not quality, but quantity. Where, then, is the reason for the inefficiency of housing policy pursued by local governments and the state? What should be changed to improve the situation?
Deputy Mayor of Gdynia Michal Guć points out that the flexibility of the solutions allowed by law is too low.
The basic factor that would create conditions for the development of municipal housing, or more broadly: for municipalities to solve the housing problems of Poles, is to loosen this corset and give local governments the opportunity to act in accordance with local needs and conditions, he says
the numbers of housing units completed under the Housing Plus program are more than modest - at the same time, projects such as the housing development on Okólna Street in Toruń (S.A.M.I. Architekci) prove that the activities of a public investor can go hand in hand with good architectural quality
© S.A.M.I. Architects
Jakub Chrzanowski also draws attention to issues closer to the architect's profession - the form of construction procurement resulting from the Public Procurement Law and the low awareness of residents.
In Poland, there is still a tendency to prefer individual ownership to cooperative or communal ownership, the designer states, adding that cooperation between the public and private sectors (under public-private partnerships or social partnerships) in communal/cooperative construction could bring many benefits to residents and investors.
However, in order for anything to change, it is necessary to have a conversation, a substantive discussion instead of the "sit-down" of various interest groups described in the introduction. Architects should be an active party to it, instead of pretending that the issue does not concern them. We don't get involved in politics, our task is to create the best possible aesthetically and functionally satisfying space," replied the authors of a successful project in Kalisz erected under Housing Plus, whom I asked to evaluate the program. It's just that in the case of publicly (co-)financed housing, there is no escape from either politics or difficult questions.
