After Gdansk, which successfully introduced a landscape resolution in 2020, the time has come for Krakow. The Internet was flooded with "before" and "after" photos showing the success of the regulation. Will the same effect be achieved in Kielce? Activists alert that the Kielce resolution is a legal bubble.
from culture to landscape
The capital of Malopolska has so far fought visual chaos with the help of cultural parks. Such regulations have been enacted for the historically most important spaces in the city - the Old Town, Nowa Huta, Kazimierz with Stadom and Old Podgórze with Krzemionki. The regulations brought a partial improvement in the appearance of the city, but outside these exceptional zones the city was littered with advertising carriers. Everything changed with the enactment of the Landscape Resolution, which regulated the rules for the presentation of advertising in urban space. Social media was flooded with "before" and "after" photos, showing the impressive scope of the changes.
resolution what resolution?
The ordering of space is also planned by Kielce. It's been two months since the resolution went into effect, but awareness of it seems low. The transition period, during which old carriers can still be used, is as long as three years. During this time, however, no new advertisements may be created that would be incompatible with the adopted regulations.
ZONE SALES
photo: Kielce City Hall
Activists affiliated with the Kielce Investment Association point to problems in accessing information related to the resolution itself. If an entrepreneur wanted to check in which of the several zones designated by the resolution his property was located, he had to rely on a low-resolution graphic attachment or use a table of coordinates that the city does not make available, for example, in a geoportal. The association used this data and prepared an interactive map.
- Zone "A" the central area of the city and the main areas of cultural heritage protection
- Zone "B" areas urbanized or intended for urbanization other than "A", "C" and "D" zones
- Zone "C" areas with predominant economic functions (industry, bases, warehouses, areas of distribution of commercial facilities with a sales area of more than 2000 m2, areas of concentration of service functions, areas of sports facilities and equipment)
- zone "D" areas of forests, parks, squares, cemeteries, river valleys, managed and natural greenery and other valuable in terms of nature and landscape
- closed areas
The coordinates of the zone boundaries in the resolution do not facilitate the use of the document
photo: Kielce City Hall
Looking at the city plan with the zones marked on it, what strikes the eye is the lack of logic in their designation, small areas excluded from its validity or covered by different regulations than the whole neighborhood. Sometimes single buildings and plots are singled out - for example, supermarkets and commercial pavilions, which are marked as industrial zones despite the fact that they are surrounded by an urban zone. The resolution does not bring an answer to the question of what happens when a plot or facility changes its function. Indeed, areas that are undergoing strong changes and have a concentration of residential developments are often labeled as industrial in the document - according to their historical, rather than actual, character.
sisyphean work
Photo: AnalogIgor / Wikimedia Commons
The city of Zeromski worked on the resolution for six years. During that time, similar documents were created in Gdansk, Krakow or Warsaw (repealed by the governor). It seems that city officials did not take advantage of these models, building their own law. A law that largely preserves the status quo. Compared to other cities, the regulations in Kielce will be liberal - only here is it allowed to locate advertising as large as 48m2, or led media. Existing fences, including those crossing pedestrian routes, will not be cleaned up either. Only new constructions will have to comply with the provisions of the resolution, even after the longest 3-year adjustment period in Poland.
