Housing consultations in November – Kierunek Przyszłość – Starachowicki Program Rozwoju Lokalnego

Starachowice Mayor Invites Residents to Housing Strategy Public Consultations

Starachowice, Poland - October 27, 2023 - The Mayor of Starachowice, Poland, is inviting all residents to participate in public consultations on the city's housing strategy. The consultations will be held on November 10, 2023, at 4:00 PM at the Starachowice Public Library on Kochanowskiego Street.

"The need for housing is undoubtedly one of the most important needs of any community," said Marcin Gołębiowski, Deputy Mayor of Starachowice. "Together with scientists from the Warsaw University of Technology, specifically the Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography, we are already in the final stages of developing the strategic document. In connection with this, I would like to invite you to public consultations to discuss once again the issues related to the shape of this important document and assess the housing potential of our city."

The housing strategy for Starachowice is being prepared by the Warsaw University of Technology as part of the project "Kierunek Przyszłość – Starachowicki Program Rozwoju Lokalnego" (Direction Future - Starachowice Local Development Program), which is funded by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism for the years 2014-2021. The document was created thanks to the cooperation of a team from the Warsaw University of Technology with a city team, which included Deputy Mayor Marcin Gołębiowski, Malwina Skrzyniarz-Pióro, Head of the Department of Economic Activity and Local Resources, Marcin Bednarczyk, City Architect, and Igor Gajewski, President of STBS.

We will gather your comments and opinions

The purpose of the consultations is to gather final comments and opinions on the prepared strategy for managing and developing housing in Starachowice. Information material on the consultations along with the strategy will be made available on the websites of the Starachowice City Hall (www.starachowice.eu), in the Public Information Bulletin of the Municipality (www.bip.um.starachowice.pl), and at the Office of Public Services of the Starachowice City Hall.

"Currently, the housing stock is becoming an element of competition for residents. That is why it is so important to expand it and manage it properly, especially in the case of cities losing residents, to which Starachowice belong. The decline in the number of residents and the aging of the population are a source of many challenges, including for economic development due to the constant decline in the number of people of working age. Starachowice has a large labor market, attracting nearly 10,000 employees from outside the city every day. Many of these people would like to live in Starachowice, but this is not possible due to the limited supply of housing and the limited supply of rental apartments. Encouraging new and young people to settle in Starachowice should become a priority in the development of housing. The growing number of older people, on the other hand, requires the expansion of the housing stock to include buildings that meet broadly understood accessibility requirements," we read in the Strategy for Managing and Developing Housing in Starachowice until 2035, taking into account the challenges arising from demographic changes.

- Housing stock in Starachowice was mainly built during the PRL period. These are mostly multi-family, five-story buildings without elevators. Apartments have very small footprints that do not allow for comfortable living, and the technology of large panel buildings, in which a significant part of them were built, makes it impossible to adapt the interiors to the needs of people with physical limitations. The strategy aims to identify the directions of development of the housing stock taking into account the challenges arising from demographic changes," the creators of the strategic document emphasize.