Construction Reforms Welcomed in Poland

Jacek Balana, is a 40-year-old father of three, a government employee and, as of very recently, a homeowner!

“My wife and I lived in a cramped apartment,” explains Balana, from in front of his new two-story house on the outskirts of Poland’s capital, Warsaw.

 “We always dreamed of having a house with a plot,” he says.

Poland has significantly simplified construction and occupancy permits for single-family houses, allowing the dreams of aspiring homeowners, like Balana, to come true, according to a World Bank report.

The report, part of a Reimbursable Advisory Services Agreement between the World Bank Group and Poland’s government, shows that a recent amendment to Poland’s Construction Law has greatly reduced the obstacles formerly involved in obtaining construction permits for single family houses.

The amendment to the construction law was taken in order to better align the Poland’s building control system with EU practices, states the report, which compares the country’s building practices with those in other EU countries to serve as a reference and guide for the Polish government’s future policy discussions on construction.

The report’s authors find that the private sector and building industry have welcomed the government’s efforts to reform Poland’s construction sector.

“Prior to 2015, investors who wanted to build a single family house had to collect lots of permits,” says Paulina Pogorzelska, the architect who designed Balana’s home, and the one responsible for obtaining the related permits.

“Getting all of this done could last as long as six months.  So there was the realization that this was unnecessary,” Pogorzelska says.  She adds that, since the construction law amendment, obtaining the required permits “takes about half the time.”

Other measures introduced so far by the construction law amendment include the replacement of construction permits with a notification system for single-family homes, the tightening of the deadline for authorities to challenge notifications, and the reduction in the types of construction for which permits are required.

Andrzej Gutowski, a private developer whose company builds approximately 1000 housing units in cities around Poland per year, says the amendment “is very important, because we still need many flats.”

“The developer market is still relatively young.  According to estimations, we will need about 2 million more apartments in Poland,” says Gutowski.

“Construction is a trigger for other industries, such as interior design and furniture manufacturing. So it is great for the economy,” he says.

Lukasz Molski, a 28-year-old construction engineer, agrees.

He says that he and thousands of other Poles are finding the work opportunities they need in Poland’s construction sector, which is the largest in in Central and Eastern Europe, employing close to a million people.  

“I can truly recommend a career in construction,” says Molski, who is overseeing the building of 800 new housing units for a private company in Warsaw.

“I am a site engineer, and the promotion path is open,” Molski says, adding that less obstacles to building in Poland translates into continued jobs for him and thousands of others in the country!