28 August 2003

Tomasz Polański, director of the Province Urban Planning Office in Wrocław, talks to Barbara Deręgowska.

Your office has been present in Lower Silesia for over 40 years. What do you do today?
We were established in our present form in 1999 as a local government entity of Lower Silesia province. Our assignments deal mainly with the law on regional planning and land use. We are primarily responsible for drawing up and verifying land-use plans in Lower Silesia province. We also carry out planning projects involving areas such as the Oder river valley, border regions along the Polish-Czech and Polish-German borders, Droga Śródsudecka, the Wrocław Metropolitan Area and areas where lignite is mined. We also prepare guidelines for various surveys and local commune land-use plans. Simultaneously, when drawing up the province land-use plan, we continued work on an annex titled Regional Zones of Enterprise Development. We pointed to 40 potential investment spots within Lower Silesia. The office is creating the System of Information on Land Use designed to streamline the processing of information reserves and facilitate their update and storage.

We also provide various design, planning and publishing services to the public. We draw up studies, give opinions, prepare text and graphic materials, databases, reports, etc. We also organize conferences and symposia, both national and international.

In view of the wide scope of our work we cooperate with neighboring provinces and border regions as well as neighboring states and the Government Center for Strategic Studies, which is responsible for international land development projects. For instance, we are currently engaged in preparing projects such as Via Regia C III in connection with the development of the 3rd Paneuropean Transport Corridor: Germany-Poland-Ukraine and the Polish-German Planning Information System-Ris De Pol, prepared within the INTERREG III B-CADSES project. Ris De Pol concerns an electronic structural map of the Polish-German borderland. The Atlas project for the Nysa Euroregion is financed by Liberec province within the PHARE CBC-Small Project Fund. The ENLARGE-NET project involves a cross-border network of links between cities and regions in Saxony, Lower Silesia and northern Czech Republic. We also participate in the project TECNOMAN Perspectives implemented within the INTERREG III B Initiative.

,b>Recently you received a second-degree award from the Minister of Infrastructure for a Study on Land Use in the Oder Valley within Lower Silesia Province. Does this mean that you have found the right formula for taming the river which flooded Wrocław in 1997?
The Oder will never be under 100-percent control and will always pose a potential threat. However, everything has to be done to reduce that danger to a minimum and at the same time make the best of the opportunities offered by the river. A team working under the guidance of Aleksandra Ruzikowska-Chmiel, office deputy director, has drawn up a study containing a diagnosis of the present state, spatial determinants, barriers, threats and land development policy for the Oder river basin within Lower Silesia province.

The Oder river starts in the Czech Republic, flows through five provinces in Poland and after joining the Nysa Łużycka (Lusatian Neisse), the river continues along the border between Poland and Germany. After the flood of 1997, an agreement was signed among the three countries' ministers on cooperation within the Oder basin for preventing and handling floods. A program named ODERREGIO Cross-Border Concept for Preventing Floods within the Oder Basin with Regard to Operations in Land Use was drawn up in 2001 within the INTERREG II C project. Poland created the Program for the Oder 2006, a strategy for modernizing the Oder water system. As a supplement to this program each of the five Oder provinces committed itself to draw up a study on land development along the Oder within its own territory.

Our study indicates how to restore the Oder river to its former status-for ages it was an economic and transport power in the region. How can we ensure maximum development of the area along the Oder's banks or flood safety? The study indicates the need for new flood-control reservoirs, polders, embankments and modernization of fall stages. It also provides a detailed analysis of the adjustments needed on the Oder waterways to meet international navigation parameters for both shipping and tourist navigation. To this end new fall stages should be built, some of the existing locks should go through an overhaul, facilities offering services to navigation should be modernized and new ports should be built as well as a system of water tourism facilities. Modernization of the Oder route will facilitate connection with the East European waterway system through Warta, Noteć, Bydgoski Channel and the Brda and Vistula rivers and also with the Western European waterway system through Oder-Spree Channel and Oder-Havel Channel through Elbe to Hamburg or through Mitteland Channel with the Weser and Rhine.

The study also points to the rich natural environment within the Oder valley. It constitutes an ecological corridor within the European Econet system of protected areas and its forest areas are among the most valuable in Europe. In order to protect, preserve and appropriately use these natural reserves the system of protected areas, patterned after European systems such as Nature 2003 and Biosphere Reserves, needs to be expanded.

In the area of cultural heritage we need to improve the state of historic monuments, especially the historic towns within the Oder valley. There are plans to establish an Oder Museum, which is a chance to expose and save many hydraulic engineering projects on the Oder.

Economically, it is essential, in terms of land-use policy, to develop the Wrocław urban area and especially the new technology business. We must also restructure local agriculture with regard to ecological production methods. The Oder valley is also a region with potentially high tourist capacity for its unique landscape and culture. These assets should be used to develop motorboat tourism, canoeing and water sports. The study also suggests the establishment of a system of regional cycling routes.

The transport system should be further expanded. There are many roads, but their quality leaves much to be desired. Needed are beltways and modernization of the railway network within the Oder valley so that transport corridors can be adjusted to a speed above 160 km/h. Most of all, we need new bridges. North of Wrocław there are only three bridges across the Oder over a stretch of 160 km.
As regards infrastructure, in order to ensure adequate quantities and the quality of water and make sure the sewage system meets modern standards, the existing water sources should be protected by establishing protection zones; the sewage treatment system in towns and villages should be supplemented and underground waters should be used as an alternative source of water supply for Wrocław. The quantity of waste should be limited through waste segregation, recycling and applying modern waste utilization methods.

In order to meet the current and prospective demand for electricity and to use the power generated by the Oder, the 400, 220 and 110 kV sections of the power network located along the Oder must be expanded and modernized, and power plants linked to newly built fall stages should be built.

I also want to point out that EU programs are carried out within the area covered by the study such as the ISPA (Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession)-designed mainly to develop transport and protect the natural environment-and SAPARD (Support for Pre-Accession Measures for Agriculture and Rural Development).


Tomasz Polański, aged 64, is married with one child. In 1967 he graduated from the Architecture Department of the Wrocław University of Technology. In 1973 he graduated from two-year postgraduate studies on urban planning at the Wrocław University of Technology. In 1966, already at the university, he began working at Wrocław Industrial Construction Enterprise No. 1. From 1968 to 1970 he was employed at the Coal Industry Construction Enterprise in Katowice. From 1970 to 1975 Polański worked as an architect for the city of Cieplice at the County Office in Jelenia Góra and later as the office's architect. In 1977 he was appointed manager of the Province Spatial Planning Office in Jelenia Góra and in 1978 a province architect at Jelenia Góra City Hall. From 1981 to 1984 he worked as a designer on an individual government job contract in Libya and in an Italian construction company. In 1984 Polański was employed at the Architecture Department of the Province Office in Jelenia Góra. From 1985 to 1989 he worked as manager of the Design Services Studio of the Association of Polish Architects in Jelenia Góra. From 1989 to 1991 he was on a Polserwis job contract in Nigeria as a designer of a Lebanese company. From 1991 to 1995 Polański worked at the Spatial Planning Department of the Province Office in Jelenia Góra and from 1995 to 1999 he was director of this department. From 1999 to 2002 he worked in Jelenia Góra at the Regional Studio of the Province Urban Planning Office and later at the Jelenia Góra Branch of the Lower Silesia Province Office. In March 2002 Polański was appointed director of the Province Urban Planning Office in Wrocław.

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