In February this year, we wrote that Bolesławiec’s largest hotel was awaiting modernization. Dariusz Sas, president of the management board of Hotel Piast, told us at the time that a shopping and service gallery, among other things, would be built on Asnyka Street. The modernized Piast was to be a 21st-century facility.

Whether it will be built remains unknown for now. The County Office did approve the construction project and issued a permit to build Galeria Piast. However, the Municipality appealed the decision.

The matter was raised at a City Council session held on Wednesday, September 30. Mayor Piotr Roman informed the councillors that the municipal office had appealed the County Office’s decision to the voivode. “The justification is very extensive,” Roman stressed. The office’s main objections were the insufficient number of parking spaces included in the construction project and sales space inconsistent with the local zoning plan.

As the mayor said during the City Council session, the company that prepared the Galeria Piast project provided for only 10 parking spaces, most of them on the underground level. “In practice, this means that Piast employees will use them,” Piotr Roman said. “To be honest, I have not seen a gallery in Lower Silesia without parking spaces,” he added.

The mayor referred to a regulation issued by the infrastructure minister, according to which every new building must have parking spaces. In the opinion of municipal officials, at least 40 new spaces of this kind should be created at Piast. Roman also recalled that when the municipality planned to build a building on Gdańska Street, the County Office rejected its project precisely because of the lack of parking spaces. “The county head changed his position on similar matters within a relatively short time,” the mayor concluded.

The municipal office’s second objection concerns sales space. “Under the regulations, only facilities with sales space not exceeding 2,000 square metres may be built in Bolesławiec,” Piotr Roman noted. According to the investor, the sales space at Galeria Piast is 1,904 square metres. In the mayor’s view, these estimates merely “create the appearance of staying below” the permitted area. “And that, in my opinion—and not only mine—is unlawful,” Roman added.

“The gallery is needed,” the mayor stressed. “But it cannot be that people who want to shop there will have nowhere to park.”

Cezariusz Rudyk, a PO councillor, joined the discussion. “We have heard the mayor’s position, but we do not know the other side’s justification,” he said. “Presenting the matter this way is hardly elegant. Let the voivode resolve the dispute.”

“The decision to issue the permit was made in accordance with the provisions of Bolesławiec’s Local Zoning Plan, which did not provide for parking spaces. The mayor authored this plan, so I am surprised that he calls the County Office’s decision a ‘mistake,’” comments Cezary Przybylski, the Bolesławiec county head. “It would be sensible to refrain from such assessments until the voivode expresses an opinion on the matter,” he adds.

“If someone wants to hit a dog, they will find a stick. The mayor appointed a commission whose task was to find anything in the project—anything at all—so there would be grounds to appeal,” says Dariusz Sas. “But these are pseudo-arguments. In my view, the mayor has no legal grounds to challenge the County Office’s decision. According to my lawyers, the construction project was prepared in accordance with the applicable local zoning plan. The document was prepared by a Warsaw-based company. It would not design anything inconsistent with the local zoning plan.”

Sas does not want to address the municipal office’s objections in detail. “For now, it is one person’s word against another’s. Let us wait to see what the voivode says,” he says.

“The appeal by the Municipality of Bolesławiec concerning Galeria Piast was received by the Voivode on September 25 this year. The matter is currently under review,” writes Tadeusz Borkowski, director of the Infrastructure Department of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office, in an email to the editorial office of “Istotne Informacje.” “A decision should be issued within a month, provided that the case files are complete and there is no need to obtain additional information from the parties to the administrative proceedings,” he adds.

We will return to this matter.

(ii report)