Infrastructure levy in Poland – forgotten achievements of the interwar period

Legal regulations in Poland allow local governments to impose infrastructure levies on private property owners to support the construction of public roads or utilities. The amount of the fee is estimated as part of the increase in property value caused by the public investment. The increase in value is difficult to estimate and is unrelated to the cost of infrastructure implementation. The regulations are therefore widely criticized. In the search for an alternative, the author draws attention to the solutions operating in Poland in the years 1928–1939. Of particular importance is a 1937 publication found in the research query, intended to support local governments in the application of the law at the time. The methods proposed in the publication for allocating the cost of building streets and squares, authored by the Urban Planning Commission of the Polish Cities Association, underpinned the study. The author verifies these proposals and relates them to contemporary regulations. The study proves the great care taken by the interwar solutions for a fair and simple participation mechanism. It also indicates possible directions for changes in the form and methods of determining infrastructure fees that can be made in modern Polish realities.