Volume 23 (2015): Issue 1 (March 2015)

The current system of spatial planning in Poland does not provide an effective and efficient tool for controlling planning decisions at a level higher than local. The result is an unrealistic approach to adopting development policies. Nowadays there is strong competition among local governments to attract investors, which results in excessive designation of investment areas and, consequently, an imbalance between supply and demand on the real estate market. An extremely important factor from the point of view of local authorities is also the financial burden on government budgets related to the implementation of the provisions of previously adopted policies. An improper spatial development policy can therefore generate costs without delivering the expected results, due to the lack of demand for the offered resources.

A step in the right direction in optimizing how the spatial policy process is shaped may include conducting analyses and forecasts to support the decision-making process. Such analyses are needed both in terms of the amount of areas designed for each type of land use as well as their spatial distribution. Our considerations are focused on the second aspect. Analysis of land use transformation potential can be used in spatial management by selecting areas most where land use is most likely to change. The paper presents the simplified mechanisms of such analyses which can be adopted by the use of cellular automata. The final potential of an area is affected by variables such as the neighborhood, accessibility and suitability. As a result of the integration of these variables, it is possible to determine land use transformation potential. These considerations relate to the MOLAND (Monitoring Land Use/Cover Dynamics) research project and works on the development of the Metronamica decision support system, conducted in Western Europe.

Sky-scrapers are rising in the panorama of big modern cities more and more often, becoming a symbol of dynamic growth and prestige. High-rise development appears to be an answer to the expanding demand for new residential and commercial space as urban land prices continue to go up and the availability of land decreases.

This article aims to identify factors affecting the choice of optimal building height in the context of economic effectiveness. It also presents factors that determine the implementation of high-rise development projects. Given the complexity of this subject matter, emphasis is placed on its economic dimension.

Cities are growing both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative development of a city can be identified with the spatial expansion and changes in the function of certain areas. The city's development, therefore, requires the reconstruction of the spatial layout, but also needs certain capital expenditures, as exemplified by industrial-technology parks (ITPs). ITPs are a combination of the infrastructure function and performance which enable the exchange of information between scientific organizations and entrepreneurs. They are, therefore, a pro-development component of the urban development strategy. The aim of the study is to identify and quantify selected costs and benefits, as well as estimate the effectiveness of establishing certain parks from the point of view of local government units.

Industry parks and technology parks are diverse entities. Their general characteristics and types, based on a review of domestic and foreign literature, are presented in the first part of the work justifying the study. The second part introduces the industrial-technology parks which are present in Poland. In the third part of the study, the specificity of assessing the effectiveness of an industrial-technology park is described. Finally, the fourth part includes an analysis of investing in selected industrial-technology parks; the analysis consists of three phases: the identification of industrial and technological parks, the verification of the industrial-technology park with the legal and practical definition, and cost-benefit analysis. According to the Polish Agency of Information and Foreign Investment (PAIiIZ), industrial-technology parks focus primarily on filling the space with commercially efficient companies using modern technologies, attracting investment and creating jobs. All of these factors are taken into account in the analysis. The analysis is carried out according to the methodology of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of investment projects.

Despite the diversity and dynamics of the structural features of the parks, the analysis confirms that the investment of public funds in industrial and technological parks is generally efficient in terms of socio-economic development.

Residential development in Poland has gone through many changes over the last few decades. In the 1990s, housing cooperatives played a major role among investors in the residential market, whereas developers were only taking their first steps. Today the situation has reversed. In addition to private persons building homes for their own use, developers contribute the most to the supply of new housing. There are many factors that have led to this situation. It is noteworthy that many laws governing the real estate market, the construction market, the development of entrepreneurship, etc. have been either enacted or frequently amended over the last two decades, which may have significantly affected developers’ activities.

The article is an attempt to answer the question about whether and, if so, how strongly changes in the legal setting have influenced residential development activity in Poland.

The article calls attention to homeowners associations (HOAs), which are becoming the dominant organizational form of housing development. It focuses on managing HOAs, especially on the social aspects and determinants of the process. The author claims that in order to understand how HOAs function, it is absolutely crucial to take social aspects under consideration. The members’ involvement, relations between the tenants and cultural norms influence the effectiveness of collective action. Those issues are especially important for professional property managers. The aim of the article is to present social aspects of managing HOAs in Poland.

The article presents the results of a study on the social aspects of HOA activity. It examines and compares three organizational models of HOAs in Poland. One of them is self-managing, with an active board of the association that operates without external help; this model requires a high level of volunteer commitment. The second model represents HOAs jointly managed by the board and a professional property manager; this type is heterogeneous – the allocation of tasks and relations between the two players vary according to the level of the board's engagement. The last type represents a HOA that was not able to establish a board, thus its role is played by a professional property manager. In all three types, both organizational structures and management methods depend on the level of the homeowners’ engagement. The study indicates such engagement factors. HOAs are characterized by their typical operations, decision-making processes, information flow, the roles played by the board of the association and professional property manager, the level of volunteer commitment and neighborhood ties. The study also indicates satisfaction factors in terms of the property manager's service.

Among factors that might significantly diversify common and economic trading, in particular trading in real estate, pre-emption, back-in and redemption rights, as well as the right of priority in acquisition play an important role. These legal instruments, despite certain differences in their legal structures, serve a similar function. Namely, they may be utilized for the purpose of affecting the preferred ownership structure. The legislator in pursuit of the assumed ownership structure may – through the instruments of the pre-emption right, back–in right, redemption right and the right of priority in acquisition – particularly with their statutory character - restrict freedom to trade in ownership with regard to the selection of the real estate purchaser. Simultaneously, in the contracting process, the parties face a certain manner of proceeding imposed, the purpose of which is to conclude the contract on transferring real estate ownership with the partner preferred by the legislator. In certain cases, the legislator goes even further, granting the eligible party a claim under which the eligible party may demand that the party obliged shall submit an appropriate declaration of will, and in the event that the party obliged refuses – the eligible party may seek the judgment of the court replacing that declaration. Proper navigation in the field of real estate trading, in particular with regard to transactions in which the pre-emption right, back-in right, and redemption right, or the right of priority in acquisition is reserved for defined entities, requires defining the legal character of the given instrument, the manner of executing the due right by the eligible party, results of the failure of the parties to the contracting process to fulfill the obligations imposed by the act, and finally, defining whether there are means for the compulsory execution of the power guaranteed by the act and, if yes, what these means are.

The study undertakes the subject of public shopping centers in Wrocław as representative of quasi-public space. Public space should enable public discussion, whereas the public events organized in malls have little to do with public debate. The users of shopping centers are usually consumers or business entities whose main goal is to improve the quality of their lives.

Public space should be available without any additional permission to use it. It should also be freely accessible and provide the opportunity for various people to congregate—this is seen as a positive feature of space that is worth visiting. Public space should also promote the notion of public property and encourage its users to express and exchange opinions. Contemporary malls serve as an attempt at providing a replacement for public space.

The study aims to represent the scale of shopping centers operating within the space of the city of Wrocław, the area they occupy and the economic consequences they entail for small entrepreneurs operating in the region where they exist.

When compared to mature housing markets, little has been done to understand the nature of demand on emerging housing markets in Central and Eastern Europe and to develop testable models for post-socialist economies. With the exception of Bazyl 2009 and Głuszak 2010, there is hardly any econometric evidence on factors behind housing tenure choices in Poland. The article focus mainly on: permanent (and current) income, household structure, lifecycle, and differences between local market characteristics. In the research, multinomial logistic regression is used to analyze factors that increase the probability of young households becoming homeowners.

The major objectives of the study are: 1)

estimation of housing demand at household level,

The research is based on latest European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EUSILC) 2007-2010 dataset (panel of approx. 4,500 households).

The understanding of price-setting attributes operating on local real estate market is not only an essential element of property appraisers’ work, it can also greatly assist the professional activities of real estate agents. However, its primary importance is for the market – facilitating the decision-making processes of developers (developers become aware of the buyers’ expectations and preferences, making it possible to more accurately form market offers and pricing strategy).

With the use of computer-assisted interviewing, a questionnaire was designed to find out students’ preferences in the housing market of large Polish cities. The research was undertaken at six universities: Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poznan University of Economics, Wroclaw Medical University, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Technology and Life Sciences in Bydgoszcz, and President Stanislaw Wojciechowski Higher Vocational State School in Kalisz. At each university, the survey was carried out on two groups of students: one included those who had chosen specializations related to the real estate market, the other one – students who did not explore the subject of the real estate market in their field of studies.

The research can make a significant contribution to the problems of real estate market analysis. The results are the first part of a broader concept of research, which ultimately aims to internationalize the findings.

The register of land and buildings is an essential source of information on real estate. The use of cadastral data in land management is manifold, starting from spatial planning, through the calculation of taxes, the designation of real estate in land and mortgage registers, and finally, in real estate management. The accuracy of information from public records, i.e. the register of land and buildings, obtained by entities managing property has a direct impact on the correctness of the conducted processes of land management. Data necessary to determine the position of boundaries of cadastral parcels are taken from surveying documentation accepted into the national geodetic and cartographic resource database. If there is no such documentation, or the data contained therein are not reliable, information on the boundaries of cadastral parcels are obtained by means of field or photogrammetric surveys, preceded by the determination of the course of these boundaries.

The present article analyzes the requirements of legislature regarding real estate data contained in the register of land and buildings. The possibility of capturing such information using an innovative method of laser scanning was also identified and tested. The object of the research was a fragment of the Old Town in Cracow, which had previously been covered by classical surveying. Based on the national geodetic control points and in relation to the National Spatial Reference System, with reference to GNSS, surveys of buildings arranged in a compact development were performed with a terrestrial laser scanner in order to compare the accuracy of determining real estate boundaries using these two methods. Possibilities of collecting data on the developed real properties that could be incorporated into the 3D cadastre in the future were identified and the quality of the obtained information was rated.