Voivodship Administrative Court judgement on wind farms

The location of the investment shall be determined pursuant to the local zoning plan. If the local zoning plan has not been adopted for a specific area, the location of the public investment shall be determined by a decision on determining the location of a public investment, whereas other investments by a decision on development conditions.

On 27 May 2009 the Voivodship Administrative Court in Poznań passed decision no. II SA/Po 1000/08 according to which, only such undertakings shall be recognized as public investments, which are technically necessary for the purpose of completing public investments. Undertakings conducive to the completion of public investments have not been qualified into the category of public investments.

In the opinion of the court, the construction of a wind farm does not constitute the realization of a public investment, therefore the realization of such an investment if there is no local zoning plan requires a decision on development conditions. Under the Act on planning and spatial development (Official Journal 2003 no. 80 section 717 with changes) ("Act") passing a decision on development conditions shall be possible if all conditions specified in the Act are jointly fulfilled. They are as follows: rule of good neighbourhood, access to public roads, sufficient existing or projected utility connections for the construction undertaking, the area does not require a permit to change the designation of agricultural land and forests to non-agricultural or non-forest purposes, compliance of the decision with separate provisions. However, the court declared in the aforementioned decision that wind farms shall be qualified as technical infrastructure facilities and therefore under the Act shall be exempted from two of the aforementioned conditions, which are the rule of good neighbourhood and access to public roads.