1.4 Functions

In Poland there is an integrated system of spatial planning laws based on general planning laws and specialized planning laws. Laws of general planning:

  • at the communal level: a study of the conditions and directions of the spatial management and local spatial management plans,
  • at the regional level: a voivodship spatial management plan,
  • at the national level: a national spatial management concept.

Laws of specialized spatial planning:

  • at the local and supra-local level: concepts and programmes referring to the areas holding a special status (e.g. management plan in the area around an industrial plant; a plan of conservation of a national park, landscape park or nature reserve; a plan of setting up a forest; eco-physiographic study, etc),
  • at the regional level: concepts and programmes referring to the areas and problems of spatial management in a voivodship (e.g. studies and concepts of spatial development of metropolitan area),
  • at the national level: programmes comprising governmental tasks serving the public purpose through the execution of an investment of national significance (e.g. concepts and plans of infrastructure development - roads, railway, pipelines).

Such a net of planning acts is overlapped with various planning acts of non-institutionalized analyses and studies, which either precede general and specialized planning at all levels of planning, or constitute independent planning acts of informative character. Such acts are, for example, studies and analyses made at the county (district) level as well as evaluations of changes of spatial development in a commune. In some voivodships spatial management/development is monitored and reports are made on its status.

The foundation for building a system of acts of spatial planning in Poland is a local plan of spatial management/development. Its significance derives from the fact that it commonly binds. Decisions permitting building-up are issued based on that plan. That means that other planning acts, even though they do influence the content of the local plan, in order to be binding they have to be transposed into it.

It can be assumed that spatial planning at the national level has mainly an analytical and informative function, and very little that of a coordinating one. However, at the regional level the importance of the coordinating functions increases, as for the informative functions. Analytical documentation gathered in the process of working on the plans of spatial management (development) is the main source of information about a region. On the local scale the study of conditions and directions of the spatial management fulfils numerous functions: analytical, coordinating, informative and partly decision-making (e.g. through indicating areas excluded from up-building, assigning reserves of terrain for important investments). Local spatial management plans have solely a decision-making function. Their usually small spatial range excludes other functions.