12 million Poles in a large album? This number raises serious doubts among experts

Large-panel buildings and the premises located in them constitute a large part of the housing stock. The problem is that estimates of the number of these buildings and apartments in the large slab are inaccurate. It’s time to examine the true number of these resources to determine the costs of renovations (municipal resources) and possible additional demand for new apartments.

The topic of large-panel blocks returns like a boomerang in the national media. One day they will have to be demolished and there will be additional demand for apartments. How many will be needed? This media interest is not accompanied by sufficient knowledge about prefabricated housing resources. Example? Experts from the RynekPierwotny.pl website point out that the available estimates of the number of large-panel blocks and apartments in these buildings are inaccurate.

Is it time to thoroughly investigate the number of prefabricated blocks and other older multi-family buildings? It seems like it would be advisable. For example in the context of financing renovation and modernization works.

Will statistics from the Polish People’s Republic help us? But often not…

Determining precisely the number of large-panel blocks erected during the Polish People’s Republic and still standing may seem easy. All the more so because in Poland, demolitions of such blocks were sporadic – unlike, for example, in the former GDR. In addition, statistical yearbooks from the period of the Polish People’s Republic are available (also online).

Unfortunately, such publications do not provide an exact answer to the question of how many large-panel blocks were built until the early 1990s.

It is worth knowing that the historical yearbooks of the Central Statistical Office contain incomplete data on the technology of constructed residential buildings. In addition, these are usually cubic data. For example, based on the statistical yearbook from 1981, we calculate that the year before, large-panel buildings with a volume of 30.8 million m³ were completed. The result for large-block technology is 7.4 million m³. How many new large-panel buildings have been completed exactly? Here the answer to the question becomes more difficult than in the case of volume.

RynekPierwotny.pl experts point out that the media often mentions an estimate of approximately 60,000 large-panel blocks. It seems that this result requires refinement and verification, as well as extension to include the age distribution of blocks.

Let us remember that the newest and the oldest blocks built using the PRL technology of large panels are more than 30 years apart. That’s quite a lot. Another issue is the variety of large-panel systems used – from popular ones (e.g. OWT, WK-70, W-70) to rare ones (e.g. WUFT).

Number of apartments and inhabitants: further doubts

Another information often found in the media tells us that approximately twelve million Poles live in approximately four million apartments made of large-panel blocks. Even the basic analysis of this information raises doubts. Simple arithmetic shows that three people allegedly live in an average “large-panel” property.

Meanwhile, the latest Central Statistical Office census from 2021 estimated the average household size in cities as 2.65 people. In large cities, the result was generally less than 2.65 people (e.g. Łódź – 2.27 people, Warsaw – 2.31 people, Wrocław – 2.35 people, Poznań – 2.41 people, Kraków – 2.43 people, Gdańsk – 2.47 people).

Therefore, the estimate of twelve million Poles living in large-panel blocks seems to be overestimated. It is difficult to assume that households inhabiting large-panel buildings are statistically significantly larger than the average result in cities.

There is another important aspect of importance. The point is whether there are actually four or even more than four million residential units in large-panel blocks – as we sometimes read.

The calculations of Dr. Hab. seem interesting in this context. engineer Anna Ostańska from 2014. They indicate that there are currently approximately 3.9 million apartments in Poland made of blocks of flats built using prefabricated technology. However, this result consists of 2.6 million apartments from large-panel blocks and 1.3 million apartments from buildings constructed using large-block technology (see: A. Ostańska, Research on the structure of housing resources in Poland on the example of buildings constructed using prefabricated technology, “Przegląd Budowlany” 12/2014).

Therefore, writing about four or even more than four million apartments only made of large-panel blocks (and not all prefabricated buildings) is unfortunately misleading.

Large-panel and large-block technologies differ in terms of construction, although in both cases we are dealing with prefabrication. Moreover, large-block buildings are statistically older, as the peak of their popularity fell at the end of the Gomułka era.

Time for a thorough examination of the big slab (and more)

According to analysts of the RynekPierwotny.pl website, the information mentioned above and the related doubts suggest the need for a more detailed study of the stock of prefabricated buildings. Of course, the state understood as the central administration has the greatest possibilities in this respect.

The situation described above also confirms the fact that the topic of collecting information about the housing stock has been largely neglected for years. This applies not only to prefabricated blocks, but also to all other residential buildings.

Andrzej Prajsnar, expert of the RynekPierwotny.pl portal