Are ZPI (integrated investment plan) and the urban planning agreement significant changes in terms of the quality of emerging residential architecture?
The amendment to the Spatial Planning Law and the procedure enacted therein for the creation of Integrated Investment Plans (IIPs) and the negotiation of an urban planning agreement gives cities and investors new opportunities for cooperation and new potential benefits. First and foremost, it gives cities the opportunity to learn about and influence potential investment plans in advance as part of negotiations, as well as to obtain specific benefits in the implementation or financing of social infrastructure by investors. For developers, on the other hand, it allows them to develop their land with functions other than those provided for in existing local plans. In order for this to succeed, what is needed on the side of city halls and municipal councils is openness to negotiations and a professional approach to the subject. On the investors’ side, on the other hand, there is a need to approach the issue in a manner consistent with the spirit of the law, that is, a willingness to give up some of the potential profits in order to transfer some real benefit to the community, as part of a so-called complementary investment. The ZPI procedure benefits from the experience and is an extension of the idea of the lex developer’s housing specs law, which has been applied successfully in some cities, while in others it has been treated as evil and doctrinally rejected without real dialogue and negotiations between the municipality and the developer. In this context, it is worth mentioning that some cities (Warsaw, Gdansk) were able to work out, in the form of official orders of their mayors, paths for proceeding and consulting on investments submitted under the lex developer speculative law. This allowed investors to more likely prepare investment projects and their assumptions, which would not be rejected by the municipal council at the end of the process.
Both of these procedures (lex developer and ZPI) require public consultations, which means that municipal councils will be sensitive to the comments of the local community and will make decisions to accept or reject a proposed investment, taking into account the public voice. Therefore, developers, respecting their time and money, should accept from the beginning of planning the investment that its parameters must be as uncontroversial as possible, and the proposed solutions acceptable to the neighborhood, that is, as a result, acceptable to neighborhood councils and city councils.
We also know that it is possible to convert everything into money to determine, for example, the limits of profitability of any investment. Especially if it would be possible to eliminate procedural risks and reduce the time for action – and these depend most heavily on city offices and authorities, says Bartlomiej Kisielewski for A&B.
