Trends in the application of urban planning standards and the assumptions of the Special Housing Act in Poland

Abstract This article aims to present research on Polish urban planning standards in effect as of 2018. The research was carried out as part of the monitoring of the operation of the provisions of the Special Housing Act compiled for the Ministry of Development and Technology. The extent to which municipalities have taken advantage of the possibility of adopting local regulations, and in them establishing the obligation of accessibility to public transportation, elementary school, green areas and technical infrastructure was checked. An element of the research was also an analysis of the principles of shaping spatial-functional order in municipalities in terms of the maximum height of residential buildings and accessibility to services and commerce. The research was qualitative at the national level and quantitative at the local level. Resolutions of municipalities introducing local urban planning standards, obtained from the current Official Journals of all 16 voivodeships in Poland, and data from the databases of Statistics Poland were used. The assumption was that urban planning standards should shape a better quality of life, including guaranteeing accessibility to social services and spatial order. The research showed that they did not fully meet the stated goal. The reason was the parameters developed at the national level were not qualitatively adapted to human pedestrian activity, and at the local level the marginal number of resolutions, adopted over a five-year period by only 3.5% of all municipalities in Poland.