1.2 Basic principles

According to the presently binding Act on Spatial Planning and Management issued on 27th of March 2003 the system of spatial planning at all the governmental and self-governmental management levels in Poland, shall be managed at all the levels adequately to the territorial division of the country. This policy is reflected in planning concepts and studies passed by appropriate social representations, i.e. the Sejm (the lower chamber of the Polish parliament), regional parliaments and communal councils. The enacted policy becomes an act of internal management, which means that its decisions are binding for the administrative bodies, which participated in the passing process. They do not apply to the third parties. They also do not cause any legal status (regulatory environment) in terms of management. They are more a set of demands, guidelines and information rather than a commonly binding regulation.

Local spatial management plans introducing investment discipline as acts of local law, are the basic instrument of spatial planning policy in Poland. By virtue of law, it is an exclusive property of the commune council to pass local plans of spatial management. A local spatial management plan been unambiguously classified as a communal regulation, which means that its regulations are binding on the territory of a commune and form a fundamental instrument to implement planning decisions. Within the area of spatial management other regulations cannot be issued. In the process, all the regulations concerning the aesthetics of development, architectural classical building order or landscape management can be executed only by means of provisions of Building Law or other national acts of law.

At the national level, the Council of Ministers (i.e. public administration) is held responsible for spatial planning, while at other levels - self-governmental authorities - adequately voivodship board and voivodship parliament at the regional level, and commune board and commune council at the local level. The hierarchy of spatial management plans in a sense of formal submission of lower levels to higher levels (as it used to be in the PRL), does not exist in the Republic of Poland. There are only the local spatial management plans that have a binding force between the state and its citizens. The national spatial management concept solely provides general guidelines and voivodships' spatial management plans are also not binding for communes. Certainly, there is a statutory obligation to agree on the content of plans, but in practice the superiority of higher levels does not exist. It leads to numerous conflicts and makes investing in Poland difficult.

The advisory body of the Minister proper for building, spatial management and housing within the area of spatial planning and management is Main Committee for Town Planning and Architecture. In voivodships, counties, municipal and rural communes analogical committees for town planning and architecture can be called up (at the level of a voivodship, county, and town/commune).