Allotment gardeners are afraid of the upcoming changes. They have little time to intervene
The amendment to the Spatial Planning and Development Act assumes that if the garden area in the development plan has a different purpose than allotment greenery, the possibility of liquidating this garden becomes open. To prevent this, allotment holders will have very little time to submit an appropriate application.
The Polish Allotment Gardeners Association reminds us that, in accordance with the changes to the Spatial Planning and Development Act, if the garden area in the development plan has a different purpose than allotment greenery, the possibility of liquidating this allotment garden becomes open. To prevent this, allotment gardeners will have very little time.
As we have already reported, the previous parliament passed an amendment to the act on spatial planning and development. The act introduces a new planning tool for the entire commune – a general plan. It will be an act of local law, with which both local plans and decisions on development conditions will have to comply. This is to simplify, accelerate and unify procedures for spatial planning in communes. Communes have until the end of 2025 to adopt general plans.
The general plans of the communes assume, among other things, the introduction of so-called planning zones. The regulations provide for the possibility of creating thirteen types of such zones, meanwhile, allotment gardens have been specified in only three of them. The Polish Allotment Gardeners’ Association warns that “this creates a real threat that decisions will be made for a significant part of the allotment gardens, at the initial stage of creating planning documents, opening the possibility of their liquidation”.
Will gardeners only have three weeks?
Whether or not the allotment garden areas will be liquidated depends largely on the allotment gardeners themselves. As portalsamorządowy.pl writes, the general plans will be adopted in an accelerated procedure, which results, among other things, from the fact that the legislator imposed a very short time for their adoption (2 years). That is why the Polish Allotment Gardeners Association, despite declarations from the government that everything will be carried out in a transparent manner, fears that representatives of the communes will reach for the most simplified procedures, which means only 21 days to submit applications for general plans.
– In many cases, where municipalities have already started working on these documents, allotment holders have had serious problems getting there on time and submitting the relevant applications. Of course, we are trying to organize allotment holders. We have started a social campaign to make allotment holders aware that they must submit such applications and we hope that this process will be increasingly efficient. A good example is Łódź, where allotment holders have submitted around 20,000 applications to the city’s general plan. Because the obligation to submit such an application rests not only with the allotment holders, but also with the owners – Bartłomiej Piech, legal advisor of PZD, explains in an interview with the portal.
To submit an application, download the application form from the official website of the Polish Allotment Gardeners’ Association. Then fill it out in full, including the geodetic plot number (available in the National Land and Building Register, you can also find it on the geoportal.gov.pl website – just enter the name of the town and street in the search engine), and then deliver it to the commune office.
