Housing resources of municipalities in Poland are shrinking quickly. More and more apartments are in private hands
Local governments are increasingly treating housing policy as a strategic element of the commune's development. However, experts from the Institute of City and Regions Development warn that the scale of these activities is still too small. It is therefore necessary to increase the scale of new apartments in various sectors – not only in development, but also social and municipal.
– The role of local governments in the state's housing policy is very important, but especially at local level, while cities have different awareness. A lot of cities in Poland do not treat housing policy as a developmental impulse, but we see from our research, which we conduct at the Institute that more and more cities are choosing that housing policy is a priority of the city's development and this is included in the commune's development strategy – says Newseria agency dr Kamil Nowak, head of the residential plant from the Institute of Development of City and Regions.
The expert draws attention to the fact that new documents such as city's housing policy or residential development strategy are adopted, in which activities are included not only for housing assistance for the worst offspring. You are also thinking about the development of housing in a broader perspective.
– For example, there are cities such as Chełmno in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, where the city's action was to remove developers. Developer construction is the main one – the most apartments are being built, and it turns out that in some smaller cities it is not so. Sometimes you also need to react when it comes to increasing the scale of apartments in different sectors, in various segments – explains Dr. Kamil Nowak.
The Irmir representative emphasizes that Residential and support at the local level can be very wide, but more and more municipalities are trying to build social apartments-through TBS, SIMs and own companies. Local governments are building more and more apartments, but still on a marginal scale. He also points out that they have a wide range of tools to increase the availability of apartments. Distinguishes, among others well conducted spatial policy, adopting local spatial development plans or arming the areas indicated for the development of residents.
– Sometimes it is forgotten that residential support is also support through a well -conducted spatial policy, which is a land policy. It is also important to adopt local spatial development plans or search for these solutions to argue, to open those land, which, although sometimes in the local plan, they are even “painted brown”, i.e. they are indicated for the development of residents, and sometimes they do not have basic infrastructure and do not manage to build new apartments. Often, residents go beyond borders, even to smaller cities, because sometimes these instruments are not used properly – explains the expert.
The head of the IRMiR Housing Department points out that there are many instruments directly related to the implementation of social or municipal construction. It points to funds from the subsidy fund and those available as part of the Social Program for rent construction. At the same time, he emphasizes that they often end and are dosed – sometimes there are more or less of them. In his opinion, if they were smoothly available, i.e. they would translate into stability in financing, more housing investments would be implemented.
The subsidy fund is a governmental program of non -returnable financing of construction, which aims to increase the resource of residential premises and social assistance rooms that serve to meet the needs of people with low and average income. The program of social rent construction was created for the development of housing for rent and a cooperative tenant. Financing as part of it applies to residential premises for rent with a statutory rent rate (maximum 5 % of the replacement value), as well as residential premises to which the cooperative tenant's right to a dwelling will be established.
Dr Kamil Nowak draws attention to the fact that local governments are responsible for creating a housing resource of the commune. They can also realize them through their companies and they are apartments for rent. He emphasizes, however, that a large part of them are sold out with high discounts, which translates into the shrinking of municipal resources.
– On the one hand, we have support for the development of apartments for rent, through TBS, SIM or Municipal Rent, but it is also the support of the ownership sector, often by selling the resources at the disposal of the municipalities. Unfortunately, this often happens for a fraction of their value, which is probably not the optimal solution – says the expert.
It also points to the problem of the process of depopulation of cities and regions. It draws attention to the fact that the loss of residents is increasingly common, but at the same time varied – the phenomenon is most severe in such voivodships as Podlasie, Świętokrzyskie or Opolskie. In his opinion, the key to success is the support of cities at the hierarchical level.
– If we think about our country's development, through not only the dimension of growth in the largest five Polish metropolises, but we think about sustainable development and ensuring further development of regions or subregions, it is also important to support cities at different hierarchical levels, not only the largest cities, but also of medium cities, which we can call subregional cities – explains Dr. Kamil Nowak.
– At the Institute of City and Regions' Development, we have developed a functional hierarchy of cities, where we also indicated the hierarchical level and we believe that we should support not only the largest cities or those struggling with crises, but also regional agglomerations, as well as at the subregional level to ensure development not only in the largest metropolises, but also in different regions – he adds.
The expert draws attention to the small housing resources of municipalities in Poland. According to the CSO data, at the end of 2023, the number of residential premises, for which there were contracts for rent from the housing resource of the commune (excluding replacement and temporary premises), amounted to only 592.8 thousand. This is a 4.3 percent decrease. Compared to 2022. In cities it was a 4.6 percent decrease, and in rural areas by 1.8 percent. The number of households waiting for the rental of residential premises from the housing resource of municipalities amounted to just over 123 thousand.
– Unfortunately, the loss process of these resources is quite fast all the time, its pace is not like a decade ago. However, these resources are still shrinking, fewer apartments are created, more are sold out, unfortunately the principles of privatization of these premises are often burdened with high discounts. This is definitely one of those things that are also worth discussing in public space – says Dr. Kamil Nowak.
