Public space in contemporary housing estates – attention to the common good versus maximisation of investor’s income

Maciej Kowaluk

Abstract

In the recent years we can observe a dynamic development of the housing market in Poland. Intensive activities of developers have been concentrated mainly on the outskirts of towns where the price of land is much lower than in the centre [1]. Very often, these areas do not have an official local land development plan and the structures that are built there are designed in accordance with the guidelines included in administrative decisions about conditions of building and land development, which are issued independently of one another. A really serious problem is the lack of a comprehensive concept of newly built districts. Structures are frequently created in a chaotic and inconsistent way. Moreover, these districts also lack the basic infrastructure such as roads. Another typical defect is negligence in relation to the public space which constitutes one of the characteristic elements of the city tissue that determines the residents’ quality of life. Developers’ activities are focused only on achieving profits on the sale of flats. Investors usually expect usable areas of flats to be maximised locally; at the same time, the building law strictly defines conditions of locating car parks, rubbish heaps or recreation areas without specifying their minimum sizes. Due to these conditions, many housing estates have a very limited area of common spaces or in fact there are no such spaces.

Full article view is only available on bigger screens.