Burn after reading

At MIPIM, developers from Western Europe seemed proud to proclaim their future projects. This was a new experience for this visitor from Poland, because the preferred method which our developers still use is not to say anything to the press and to hide their planned projects from the public until the last possible moment.  I sometimes get the impression that they would prefer to deliver ready buildings to construction sites under the cover of night
 Radosław Górecki
Polish developers are afraid. Very afraid. When I try to find out something about a big new project, many of them keep their lips firmly sealed. "It is better not to make this project public... the neighbours will probably only start protesting against it," they say. There is some truth in this. Looking at the statistics for construction disputes, a dismal picture of the reality in Poland emerges. There are protests against nearly every project, which are organised by either residents, environmentalists, the competition, unions, bird lovers... the list of people with objections seems to be endless. The Polish Construction Supervision Office issues several decisions concerning construction disputes every day, and deals with thousands of such cases every year. And then there are the court cases, which can go on for many years.  So I have some sympathy for investors. On the other hand, I get the impression that the biggest problem is the inability to talk. In many cases developers are only satisfied when they manage to start a construction without any fuss. However, as experience shows, the start of construction work does not guarantee that the project cannot later be brought to a halt. Will this ever change? It is hard to say; however, I doubt it very much. Protests have become our second nature.
However, there is another side of this coin. I will not list here the hundreds of dismantled historic buildings or the use of legal tricks to ?push' not exactly lawful projects through the administrative machine. All this has given developers an unenviable image in Poland. Developers are very often depicted in the local media as bloodthirsty capitalists looking for any opportunity to make a fast buck. This is, of course, a distorted and often unfair picture. And this is why I would like to appeal for more openness. I do not understand why clear zoning plans have yet to be drawn up - why Polish cities do not have scale models that would show what sort of buildings should be built in which location in a way understandable even for the layman. I completely cannot understand why even council officials want to collude with developers in keeping their projects secret. What is worse, a custom of clandestine meetings between developers and officials has emerged. Also providing fertile conditions for this rather weird councillor-developer relationship is the lack of zoning plans.
At this year's MIPIM there was a lot of positive talk about Poland. But it somehow restores my faith in humanity that there is such a gulf between us and the way things are done in more developed countries. An example? I visited the stalls of Paris and London. In huge tents, scale models of whole districts and even cities were on display. Nobody wanted to hide them. Interestingly, when I asked about one of the skyscrapers planned for Paris, both officials and developers were suddenly at my disposal, explaining who was responsible for what, that the project was one that still needed to be discussed, and that the opinion of the local community was vitally important.
And at our stalls? It was all a bit more... homespun. It was sad to notice one developer secretly showing council officials a few pages of drawings of a proposed skyscraper. When I moved closer, everybody suddenly turned a bit sheepish. A journalist with a camera wants to take pictures and ask questions? This is dangerous! The investor himself originated from Western Europe and was probably unfamiliar with our customs. When I asked about the project, he wanted to tell me all about it - but unfortunately his Polish minders were quickly on hand to put an abrupt end to his reckless candour. "Don't talk to the press!" he was ordered, and that was the end of that. The councillors also refused to comment. So for their sake please destroy this text after reading in case (god forbid!) anyone finds out what they're up to.