Today's article in our "Tuesday Mornings for Construction," as part of a series on the currently pending bill amending the Spatial Planning and Development Act and certain other acts (the " Draft "), focuses on municipal standards for accessibility of social infrastructure. On May 26, 2023, the Bill was passed by the Sejm and became the subject of deliberations in the Senate.
As a reminder, the Project aims to simplify, standardize, and accelerate spatial planning procedures, including by introducing a new planning tool, mandatory for the entire commune, in the form of a local law act – a general plan. The commune's general plan will serve as the basis for developing a more detailed local law act, the local spatial development plan (we discussed the general plan in detail in articles #148 and #149 ) . In this respect, it will replace the commune's study of conditions and directions for spatial development.
The general plan will primarily contain provisions regarding the functions of individual areas, as well as frameworks for shaping development and land use. Furthermore, municipalities will be able to designate downtown development areas in the general plan and formulate specific development principles for them, including minimum biologically active area and distances between buildings, as defined in regulations issued under the Building Law. As indicated in Article #152 , the general plan will also be able to include regulations regarding accessibility standards for social infrastructure.
The goal of municipal social infrastructure accessibility standards is to ensure new housing investments have access to essential public services. The Draft indicates that these standards encompass principles for ensuring access to social infrastructure facilities – primary schools and public green spaces, i.e., facilities that meet the most important social needs: education, leisure, and recreation. If municipal social infrastructure accessibility standards are established, issuing a decision on development conditions for a building intended to serve a residential function will be possible if each cadastral plot within the development site meets municipal social infrastructure accessibility standards through access to social infrastructure facilities and existing access routes on the date of the decision.
According to the Project, providing access to a primary school is understood as the location of the cadastral plot at a distance of no more than:
- 1500 m in cities,
- 3000 m outside the cities,
- calculated as the access route along the public pedestrian route from the border of this plot to the primary school building.
Providing access to public green areas is understood as the location of a cadastral plot at a distance of no more than:
- 1500 m from public green areas with a total area of not less than 3.0 ha and
- 2. 3000 m from a public green area with an area of not less than 20 ha,
- calculated as the access route along the publicly accessible pedestrian route from the border of this plot to the border of the public green area.
This means that in both cases, meeting the social infrastructure accessibility standard was based on examining the access route to the facility from the boundary of the cadastral plot on which the residential development is to be located. Access to the facility may be provided by publicly accessible pedestrian routes, which, according to the Project's justification, means that these may include paths in public spaces within housing estates or paths in public green areas.
It is also important that municipalities will be entitled to specify, under the resolution, other values of the distance of social infrastructure facilities from residential areas, as well as other values of the area of green areas from which the standards are calculated – both in terms of the closer and further standard, with the proviso, however, that the new values of the area of green areas from which the standards will be determined cannot be less than 50% of the values specified in the Project.
Moreover, according to the Draft, if a municipality establishes municipal standards, residential areas may be designated in local plans (including integrated investment plans) and in development decisions only if they meet social infrastructure accessibility standards . This means that each plot within its entire area will have to meet the social infrastructure accessibility criterion to be designated as a residential plot. Existing social infrastructure facilities will be considered for the standard assessment, and in the case of local plans, facilities designated for location based on the applicable plan will also be considered. This means that in the case of larger investments, which will be implemented on more than one plot, there is a chance that in order to meet social infrastructure accessibility standards, investors will be forced to combine the plots into one, which could significantly impact project completion timelines.
As part of the municipal standards for the accessibility of social infrastructure, municipalities will also be entitled to:
- establishing rules for ensuring access to facilities such as kindergartens, nurseries, primary health care clinics, libraries, community centers, social welfare homes, post offices, pharmacies, etc.,
- establishing different regulations for different areas of the commune, including covering some areas of the commune with standards, clearly defining the boundaries of these areas;
- exclusion of farm development areas from the obligation to provide access to certain social infrastructure facilities.
The changes described in the Draft are considered very extensive, but the need to overhaul the spatial planning and development system has long been advocated for. The Draft will undoubtedly be further modified as it progresses through parliamentary proceedings. It is hoped, however, that it will resolve the current legal issues arising from the current spatial planning and development system.
Next week, as part of "Tuesday Mornings for the Construction Industry", we will present you with a summary of changes in the law in May and announcements of changes that are to come into force in June.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Legal status as of May 30, 2023
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