Housing cooperatives in Poland. The origins of a deadlock

Abstract

Housing cooperatives in Poland have a long history, which began at the end of the nineteenth century. The cooperative movement proposed innovative solutions for housing, as far as the architectural and the social dimensions are concerned especially in the interwar period, and became in the 1960s the most important actor in the housing system in Poland, until the end of the 1980s. Nevertheless, this dominant position also contained the roots of cooperatives’ own decline which is on-going. Today, 17% of the housing stock belongs to the cooperative sector, but less than 3% of new dwellings are built by cooperatives. This article analyzes the growth and decline of Polish housing cooperatives during the twentieth century and why we can consider that they have reached a deadlock in the neoliberal Poland.

Keywords:

• housing
• housing cooperatives
• co-ownership
• eastern and central Europe
• People’s Republic of Poland
• Poland

Notes

1. The ownership was a limited one: The house belonged entirely to the cooperative. The so-called cooperative ownership was the right to occupy a dwelling. This right was marketable and inheritable.

2. These associations were very seldom. The cooperative was created to build houses and disappeared once they were built. The ownership was thus transferred to their inhabitants.

3. Statistical data about housing and population are provided by the Central Office for Statistic (Główny Urząd Statystyczny), GUS. Figures and tables in this article are using this source, except if noted.

4. ‘Duże, przytłaczające, nieprzyjazne ludziom miasto, osiedle; też: duża, niesprawna instytucja’, Słownik Języka Polskiego, Państowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, http://sjp.pwn.pl