Level of Spatial Planning Culture of Rural Gminas in the Central Region of Poland

Abstract

Spatial planning in Poland undergoes constant changes due to the activity of the legislative body. These changes to a varying extent affect the activity of local authorities of rural gminas in the scope of spatial planning. The diversity in rural gminas is especially noticed in the application of land-use plans, and consequently also the planning permissions. Similarly, this diversity concerns changing the status of farmland from agricultural to residential and deforestation of agricultural and forest land. These factors are the elements forming the level of spatial planning culture that results from the regulations forming the spatial planning system. The equivalent element that forms the spatial planning culture is use of tools available by law, taking into consideration their gradation due to their complexity. These assumptions allowed for using the Central Statistical Office’s resources to form indexes related to the area of spatial planning. These indexes became the component parts involved in the construction of Hellwig’s synthetic measures of development. By using synthetic measures, it was possible to form the classification of rural gminas in the central region of Poland due to their level of spatial planning culture. The obtained results allowed for the evaluation of the level of spatial planning culture both in the central region and in the particular voivodeships comprising the region. The obtained results enabled the analysis of spatial diversity of spatial planning culture The results also confirmed a great diversity of rural gminas regarding the adopted attitude with reference to the application of spatial planning tools. An important conclusion was the fact that a low level of spatial planning culture was identified in rural gminas located in the urban areas and in the neighbourhood of cities.