Faciliations in construction of houses of up to 70 m2

Polish Parliament received a draft amendment to the Act on Construction Law and the Act on Planning and Spatial Development. Among other things, the planned changes include the possibility to build single-family residential buildings, whose footprint does not exceed 70 m², without the need to obtain a construction permit (print No. UD253).

Currently, it is not required to obtain a construction permit for single-family residential buildings whose impact area is entirely within the plot or plots on which they are designed. Such buildings must be notified with a construction design, a construction manager must be appointed and a construction log must be kept. The amendment is to expand the group of facilities, the construction of which does not require a decision, but only notification. The catalogue of facilities requiring only a notification will be expanded to include detached, no more than two-storey single-family residential buildings with a footprint of up to 70 m², whose area of influence is entirely within the plot on which they were designed. The construction of such a building would furthermore have to be carried out in order to meet the investor’s own housing needs.

Thus, it will be possible to start construction of smaller houses without the need to obtain a building permit, appoint a construction manager and keep a construction log.

The bill introduces a simplification in the procedure for notifying the construction of houses of up to 70 m², which consists in excluding the possibility for the authorities to object to the investor’s notification of such construction. As a result, it will be possible to commence construction immediately after the appropriate notification of the building is delivered to the authority.

However, the investor will have to make appropriate statements to the authority – that the construction is being carried out in order to satisfy his own housing needs, that he accepts responsibility for managing the construction in the event that a construction manager is not appointed and that the documentation attached to the notification is complete.

The draft also redefines the concept of a building intended for leisure purposes, which is currently exempt from the obligation to apply for a construction permit. The existing maximum area of such buildings has been increased from 35 m² to 70 m².

The above draft was adopted by the lower house of Parliament, but the Senate rejected it in its entirety. The draft will now go to the lower house, which will be able to reject the Senate’s resolution by an absolute majority of votes in the presence of at least half the statutory number of members.