Minister for Development and Technology, Waldemar Buda on 26 October 2023 signed an amendment to the Regulation on technical conditions to be met by buildings and their location. The amended regulation will enter into force 1 April 2024
The aim of the changes introduced is above all to eliminate practices that deviate from the existing standards, in particular to improve the quality of the building, sometimes contrary not only to the principles of good architecture but also to common sense.
Amendments to the rules shall include in particular:
- Determination of the minimum area of the usable premises 25 m2 (excluding ground-floor premises and first the floor, accessible directly from outside the building;
- Increase the distance between buildings on adjacent plots and above 4 ground storeys (excluding adjacent plot being a publicly available square);
- Increasing the distance between buildings on adjacent plots above 4 ground floors (minimum 5 meters from the border);
- Increasing the distance of new production and storage buildings from residential buildings (minimum 30 m distance for production and storage buildings from residential and collective residence buildings;
- More emphasis on adequate quieting of the apartment – increased acoustic standards for entrance doors and building partitions;
Providing greater privacy for balcony holders – introduction of mandatory vertical balcony partitions at least 2.2 m and width not less than 2 m or at least to the width of the balcony including balustrades), with light transmittance in the range from 30% to 50%;
Necessity to maintain a minimum 20% biologically active area in open areas and markets above 1000 m²;
Rationalisation of parking location planning - maximum 6% parking spaces for disabled people located closer to the windows as part of the investment;
Necessity of providing a residential multi-family economic room with at least an area of 15 m2 for the storage of bicycles and baby carriages including in the form of an economic building, gazebo or wind)
Increasing the number of children's playgrounds depending on the number of dwellings in the building or building assembly:
- • 21-50 dwellings — 1 m2 playground for every apartment,
- • 51-100 apartments – playground with minimum area 50 m2,
- • 101-300 dwellings — 0.5 m2 playground for every apartment,
- • above 300 apartments – playground with minimum area 200 m2.
The introduction of stricter conditions should have a positive impact on emerging investments. Thanks to the new regulations, developers will be required to put more emphasis on the quality of their implementation, while in recent years the noticeable trend has been mass construction.