Urban policy and the rise of gated housing in post-socialist Poland

The aim of this article is to investigate regulations regarding housing and spatial planning to determine the extent to which these have influenced the development of gated housing in Poland since 1989. The focus is on how government policy with regard to spatial planning and housing, together with the law on property and ownership, influences the emergence and development of gated forms of housing in the country. Legal regulation documents concerning issues of housing and spatial planning between 1990 and 2013 have been studied. The article argues that the liberal policies and legal regulation in the country is resulting in a disregard for spatial planning and housing, but also the lack of integrated urban policies. Existing spatial plans are of a consultative nature and bear no regulatory capacity, at the same time as housing programmes and spatial planning in the country is strongly in favor of private investors and new construction. All these shortcomings have created a differentiated housing market, one in which housing developers maximize their profits by constructing gated housing complexes, combined with a tendency among those who have the means to move to newly built housing behind gates. The long period of developer-friendly policies and governmental support of purchasers of new construction, have resulted in increased popularity of gated communities in Poland and their spread to many Polish cities.