Thanks to the councillors’ decision, Jan Cołokidzi and Henryk Guzik can build a store of 2,000 rather than 800 square metres in the complex they are constructing. A year ago, they won a tender for perpetual usufruct of the plot on Łokietka Street for 4 million zlotys, payable in instalments. However, in the tender documents and the notarial deed, Mayor Piotr Roman (PiS) included a restriction that the retail area of the building constructed there could not exceed 800 square metres. It was intended to protect the city from having a large store built on the plot.
The mayor now wanted to incorporate this restriction into the city’s new spatial development plan. The councillors rejected it, effectively increasing the possible retail area of the planned building. In the process, they gave Guzik and Cołokidzi a gift worth several million zlotys.
A gift for their own?
“As a result, a plot like this is now worth at least eight million zlotys,” claims Krystyna Bałacka, who has been dealing in real estate in Bolesławiec for 12 years. “The original price of 4 million zlotys for this plot, developed in accordance with the restrictions, was reasonable. Now, however, its value has increased.”
Paweł Kamiński: Vice-President of Transparency International Polska
“Issues connected with spatial development plans recur in our work. The mechanism that emerged in the Bolesławiec case is corrupt. In a similar case involving an investment in one of the towns near Warsaw, Transparency International notified the prosecutor’s office of a suspected offence of mismanagement. As a result of the actions of Bolesławiec’s municipal authorities, the city was exposed to mismanagement. The prosecutor’s office should also deal with this matter.”
The restriction on the area proposed by the mayor was rejected thanks to the remarkably united votes of councillors from Law and Justice, Civic Platform, the Democratic Left Alliance and Ziemia Bolesławiecka, whose leader, although not a councillor, is Jan Cołokidzi. ZB governs the city in coalition with PiS. Only three of the 19 councillors present at the session abstained. No one voted against.
“We concluded that the mayor’s conditions imposed on investors were blocking certain aspects of the city’s expansion,” says Józef Pokładek, deputy chairman of the city council and head of the PiS caucus. However, he cannot specify what those “aspects” are. “The value of the site certainly did not increase because of our decision.” The mayor is not surprised that councillors from the coalition supporting him voted against his proposal. “It happens; councillors are sometimes against me,” says Piotr Roman. “The restrictions in the notarial deed still apply to the investors.”
The plan is more important
The notarial deed is indeed still valid, but a spatial development plan allowing 2,000 square metres of retail space is the more important document. “A building permit will be issued based on the project’s compliance with the spatial development plan, not the notarial deed,” says Krzysztof Pańczak of the county office’s architecture and construction department, which issues permits. “If the project were inconsistent with the notarial deed, that would be a problem for the buyer and seller of the site.”
What will be built there?
The new buildings of the Galeria Ceramika shopping and services centre are supposed to be structurally complete by the end of 2007 on the plot near Łokietka Street. The site was originally intended to contain a complex of tenement buildings with commercial premises, a hotel and a multi-storey car park for 170 cars. A small park with benches and trees was also planned between the buildings. However, while the new spatial development plan was being adopted, the investors managed to introduce changes that the council approved. The building will be up to 18 rather than 15 metres high. A larger part of the plot will be built over than originally planned, while the centre will contain half as much greenery as promised. There will, however, be twice as many parking spaces.
The municipality protected itself in the notarial deed against failure to meet the tender requirements. It may demand termination of the perpetual usufruct agreement and the return of the land if the conditions are not met. However, we were unable to obtain a clear answer as to whether it would do so if, for example, a 2,000-square-metre store were built in the centre on Łokietka Street. “We cannot assume in advance that the investor will fail to meet the conditions,” says city office spokesperson Agnieszka Gergont. “Since the 800-square-metre restriction is fictitious, the city should recover the plot, refund these men their money and sell the land again at a different price. After all, the plot still belongs to the city,” says Edward Kaput, Civic Platform press spokesperson. “This whole matter is at least strange¹. The municipality has given private entrepreneurs a gift.”
Without shame
Henryk Guzik, a shareholder in Kopalnia Piaskowca “Jan”, which holds the plot in perpetual usufruct, did not want to declare in an interview with us that no 2,000-square-metre store would be built in the centre on Łokietka Street. “We are bound by the conditions of the notarial deed, and we guarantee that nothing the city would be ashamed of will be built there. We have no bad intentions,” says Guzik. “The value of the plot has increased, just as the value of all real estate in Bolesławiec and across the country has increased over the past year. The city council’s decision had no influence on this increase.”
(information: Bernard Łętowski – Gazeta Wojewódzka)
(¹ – in the text sent to the Boleslawiec.org editorial office, the word “unclean” appeared, whereas the Gazeta Wojewódzka publication used the word “strange”; therefore, on 15 May 2007, we made the appropriate change to the text on our website)