We reported on the matter at the end of May this year. Our Reader wrote in an email to the editorial office: “I am a resident of Osiedle Kwiatowe in Bolesławiec. The Municipal Office wants to eliminate recreational areas, namely sports fields, squares and a playground on Tulipanowa and Narcyzów streets, in favour of building plots on which single-family homes would be constructed. Councillor Chudzik supposedly collected 80 signatures in support of eliminating this place. I asked local residents about it; they expressed their disapproval and dissatisfaction with the idea. Residents do not want anything changed here.”
In April, the City Council adopted a resolution on commencing the preparation of a local spatial development plan for the area bounded by Tulipanowa, Narcyzów and Różana streets. The justification for the resolution states: “The applicant for the change to the plan’s functional provisions was councillor Leszek Chudzik, together with nearly 80 residents of Osiedle Kwiatowe, who requested [o] the elimination of the recreational area and its replacement with a residential function. This would result in the elimination of a place that has so far been an area of pathology and social exclusion [podkreślenie pochodzi od redakcji]. The new provisions of the local plan will make it possible to develop this area with single-family homes, moving the recreational and sports function to an area monitored and socially supervised.”
In a conversation with us, Councillor Chudzik stressed that the matter was not about eliminating recreational areas, but about moving the football field. “A small sports centre operates next to the vicarage of the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. That is where we would like to move the facility,” the councillor noted. “We certainly will not dismantle the playground equipment.”
“Such a large facility is not needed on Osiedle Kwiatowe,” the councillor argued. “Besides, hardly anyone plays on the existing one. Young people more often meet in the nearby woodland, drink alcohol, and then residents complain about the noise. The police and municipal guards have intervened there many times.”
Leszek Chudzik also requested that the money from selling the plots not be allocated to investments in the city, but instead invested in the development of the estate. An additional tennis court and volleyball court would be built next to the parish. “The parish priest would then be able to keep an eye on what is happening there,” the councillor said.
After this article appeared online, the forum of IstotneInformacje.pl was abuzz. Among others, Jarosław Molenda, organiser of the Kwiatoliga tournament, spoke out: “For several years now, unfortunately, it has not been possible to organise Kwiatoliga on the estate sports field. For a trivial reason—the facility’s administrator, the city, forgot about it! A complete lack of even basic maintenance led to the situation in which Councillor Chudzik can say that hardly anyone plays there. But instead of taking action to ensure that the appropriate municipal services care for public property, Councillor Chudzik came up with the idea of eliminating the sports field!”
“I found out about the planned changes by chance. I was terribly surprised,” Jarosław Molenda said in a conversation with us. “I found the April resolution of the City Council. And suddenly it turned out that the place where I live was Sodom and Gomorrah, something I had failed to notice for all these years.”
Molenda and his neighbours began collecting signatures for a petition opposing the closure of the facility. The youngest residents of the estate also joined the campaign. Nearly 200 signatures were collected. “Almost everyone who lives near the sports field signed the petition,” says the organiser of Kwiatoliga. “In the near future, I want to hand these signatures to the Chairwoman of the City Council, Janina Piestrak-Babijczuk.”
“It is true that not much has happened on this sports field for several years,” Jarosław Molenda admits. “But one has to ask who brought the facility to this state. In the past, this sports field was full of life! People stopped taking care of it, and now the argument is being used that nobody uses it.”
“I also do not understand the idea of eliminating a sports field built with public money,” Molenda continues. “We will eliminate it, build houses, and then construct an identical facility 300 metres away. That is poor management. Besides, who will look after this sports field? Who will mow, rake and clean it? Rev. Józef Hupa? Would the priest be expected to serve as the director of MOSiR? After all, it would still be a municipal facility. The municipality would not get rid of the problem this way at all. And it is not that I oppose building a sports field by the church. Not at all. I believe that what Father Hupa does for young people is a great job. However, the councillors who voted in favour of this resolution should first have familiarised themselves with the situation.”
We will return to this topic.