• From 3 January 2022, a law will come into force allowing easier and faster construction of single-family dwellings with a construction area of up to 70 sqm.
• Also from the beginning of the year, the state's purchasing policy will take effect, which is expected to encourage SME companies to participate more in public procurement.
• We present a list of the most important initiatives of the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology that will come into force in the first quarter of 2022.

House up to 70 sq m

From 3 January 2022, the provisions of the Act of 17 September 2021 on amending the Act - Construction Law and the Act on planning and spatial development (Journal of Laws item 1986). Easier construction of a single-family residential house with a built-up area of up to 70 sqm is one of the 10 flagship projects of the government's Polish Deal programme.

The act enables faster and easier construction of free-standing, no more than two-storey single-family residential buildings with a built-up area of up to 70 sqm. The area of such houses must fit entirely on the plot or plots on which they are designed, and their construction is to be carried out in order to meet the investor's own housing needs.

The construction of such houses will be able to be carried out under a simplified procedure, ie.:

• on the basis of a facilitated notification;
• without the obligation to appoint a construction manager;
• without the obligation to keep a construction log.

It is worth emphasising that the new regulations do not prohibit the investor from appointing a construction manager, keeping a construction log or using the simplified notification procedure, but they are a possibility and an alternative that the investor will have to choose from.

The notification procedure will be facilitated by the exclusion of the possibility for the architectural and construction administration body to object to the notification submitted by the investor. Construction will be able to proceed immediately after a suitable notification with a complete set of documents is delivered to the architectural-construction administrative body.

In this case, the notification will have to be accompanied by additional statements to the effect that:

• the planned construction is carried out in order to satisfy one's own housing needs;
• the investor accepts responsibility for managing the construction if a construction manager is not appointed;
• the documentation attached to the notification is complete.

The construction of a house with a built-up area of up to 70 sqm under the simplified procedure must comply with the provisions of the local spatial development plan, and if there is no such plan, it will require obtaining a decision on development conditions, which in this case will be issued within 21 days. 

On 3 January 2022, the Ordinance of the Minister of Economic Development and Technology on the determination of the specimen form of the application for determination of the location of a public purpose investment or development conditions will also come into force. The regulation specifies a uniform application form. As a result, everyone will be able to digitally submit an application for a decision on development conditions using the e-Budownictwo application (available at e-budownictwo.gunb.gov.pl), without having to visit an office or post office. In addition, the application will include instructions on how to properly complete and attach the required documents.

At the end of January the result of the competition for the best designs of houses up to 70 sq.m. will be announced. The aim of the competition is to select conceptual designs with high architectural and functional, ecological, economical and aesthetic values. On their basis, building designs intended for multiple use will be prepared. In the second quarter of next year, they will be made available on a specially created service on the gov website for all interested parties to use in meeting their own housing needs. In this way, the best, accessible and universal architectural solutions will have a chance to become widely known.

Rent holiday

From 1 January 2022, so-called rent holidays for residents of rental flats in Social Housing Initiatives (SIM) and previously TBS come into force. This is a convenience for flat renters, provided for in the so-called social part of the housing package, the individual elements of which have been successively introduced since 2021.

Rent holidays are intended for current and future residents of social rented housing (SIM/TBS) and give the opportunity to reduce rent by up to 20 per cent.

They consist in converting the tenancy agreement into a tenancy agreement containing a partition settlement, the so-called rent holiday. Previously, the tenant/participant could recover the paid participation in the construction costs of the leased premises only in the case of termination of the lease and vacating the premises.

Now, after SIM/TBS has repaid the loan taken out for the construction of the dwelling, residents can decide for themselves when and how they will recover their participation contribution. They no longer have to wait until the end of the lease, but can gradually collect their contribution in rent - thus paying less.

State purchasing policy

From January 2022, the State Purchasing Policy will come into force, which aims to increase the involvement of SME sector entities in the public procurement market.

The Council of Ministers adopts the State Purchasing Policy document in the form of a resolution, once every 4 years. The first Pzp covers the period 2022-2025.

The preparation of the policy stems from the new Public Procurement Law, and the recommendations contained therein are a supplement to the provisions of the law and another element of the reform of the public procurement system. The state purchasing policy describes the public procurement system based on 3 priorities, which are:

• SME potential development;
• professionalisation;
• sustainable public procurement.

The Public Procurement Law sets out a new, strategic approach of the government administration to the issue of SME participation in public procurement. The main objective is to increase the interest of small and medium-sized entities in the public procurement market, and to increase the activity of SMEs already present in the market.

This is to be achieved by

• the division of contracts into lots (which can be executed by SMEs)
• even and adapted to SMEs distribution of the burden of financing the contract;
• a purchasing strategy for procurers;
• wider use of framework agreements.

The above-mentioned practices will be complemented by training addressed to entrepreneurs as well as participants in public procurement. The training will cover procurement in sectors of key importance to SMEs - construction works, medical devices, IT services.

We assume that the implementation of the Public Procurement Law will contribute to the dominant position of SMEs in the public procurement market, to strengthening the potential of the domestic services sector and industry. Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises constitute the vast majority of businesses in Poland - 99.8%. Among them, micro-enterprises are the most numerous group.

In addition to the development of SMEs, the state's purchasing policy focuses on two further complementary priorities:

• professionalisation of procurement - increasing its efficiency and innovation; this involves staff responsible for meeting the purchasing needs of contracting authorities and selecting solutions which take into account environmental, innovative, social or health-related aspects
• sustainable and innovative procurement - to give impetus to the development towards economic trends related to innovation and ecology, while ensuring high quality public services.

Certification of public procurement

We plan to launch a consultation on a Green Paper for the certification of public procurement contractors in January 2022. The drafting and legislative process is planned for 2022, and the assumed date of entry into force of the certification is 2023.

The introduction of a mechanism of certification of public procurement contractors is the implementation of one of the main priorities of the state purchasing policy being prepared, i.e. the development of the potential of SMEs. The solution has been included in the Polish Order and is expected to favour contractors operating on the domestic public procurement market

By certifying public procurement contractors we want to make the public procurement market

• more open for domestic SMEs;
• strengthen the economic potential of economic operators, in particular of SMEs.

The certification of economic operators will consist in reducing the number of obligations on the part of economic operators to submit documents in the course of a public procurement procedure.

Instead of collecting and submitting numerous documents multiple times for the needs of individual procedures (e.g. certificates from the Tax Office or ZUS, information from the National Criminal Register), a contractor will be able to do it only once. In this way, throughout the validity period of the certificate, he will be able to use it to win new public contracts.

The contractor will be able to obtain two types of certificate to assist in the public procurement procedures:

• the first type of certificate will be used to prove that there are no grounds for excluding the contractor from the proceedings for supplies, services and works (e.g. no tax arrears, no criminal record);
• the second type of certificate, intended only for public works contracts (in the future, the scope of certification may be extended to include certain standardised services and supplies), will be used to confirm the fulfilment of conditions for participation in the procedure, e.g. appropriate experience, staff, equipment.

Contracting authorities will not be obliged to require submission of the relevant certificate. Use of the certificate will always depend on the contractor. Those who do not have a certificate will be able to prove that there are no grounds for exclusion from the procedure or that they meet the conditions for participation in the procedure in the "traditional" way. This means that the proposed solution in the form of certification of contractors will be based on introducing additional possibilities, and not on replacing the existing ones with new ones.

The proposed changes in regulations are addressed to all participants in the public procurement market, i.e. ordering entities and contractors, with particular emphasis on the SME and construction sectors.

The certification mechanism functions in other European Union Member States, e.g. Germany, Italy, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and its operation fulfils the objectives we assume on the Polish ground - i.e. standardisation of proceedings and support for local resources and SMEs.

Aid for entrepreneurs

In the first quarter of 2022, regulations governing the granting of aid to entrepreneurs by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), under European Union programmes and initiatives, will come into force. These will be continuations of the existing forms of support by PARP, for which the financing period ends on 31 December 2021.

From 1 January 2022 PARP will continue to provide support under the programmes and initiatives of the European Union of the new financial perspective 2021-2027, designated for:

• covering costs of task implementation by centres of the European Enterprise Network - Enterprise Europe Network (EEN);
• covering expenses related to running the National Contact Point for Financial Instruments under new EU initiatives and programmes;
• covering necessary expenses incurred by entrepreneurs under the "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs" programme.

From 1 January 2022. PARP will grant regional investment aid in accordance with the new map of regional aid for 2022-2027.

Regulations on public procurement law

On 1 January 2022, it is planned that the regulations of the Minister of Economic Development and Technology concerning the requirements for documentation developed by the ordering party in the public procurement procedure will come into force (this concerns the form and scope of project documentation, technical specifications for execution and acceptance of construction works and the functional-utility programme, as well as the method and basis for preparation of the investor's cost estimate, planned costs of construction works and planned costs of design works). The ordinances regulating these issues function in the legal system and do not introduce major changes in relation to the ordinances already in force. This concerns the regulation:

• on the detailed scope and form of the design documentation, technical specifications for execution and acceptance of construction works and the functional-utility programme;
• on specifying the methods and basis for preparing an investor's cost estimate, calculating the planned costs of design works and the planned costs of construction works specified in the functional-utility programme.

In the first quarter of 2022, it is planned that the Regulation of the Minister of Economic Development and Technology amending the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure on technical conditions to which buildings and their location should conform will enter into force.

Compensation of indirect costs of greenhouse gas emissions

The draft amendment extends the possibility of granting compensations until 2030. This is related to the European Commission's communication (published in September 2020) on guidelines for certain state aid measures in the context of the greenhouse gas emission allowance trading scheme after 2021.

The changes are to introduce, among others:

• a new list of sectors eligible for compensation;
• the possibility to increase the compensation granted;
• moving away from reference production towards actual production when calculating the level of compensation (thus removing the need to determine the increase in production capacity);
• inclusion of all electricity consumption, regardless of its source.

Asbestos removal

At the beginning of the new year, the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology will announce a competition for local self-government units on educational and informational activities and inventorying of products containing asbestos. This will be the implementation of tasks arising from the "Programme for National Asbestos Removal 2009-2032".

The competition has been an initiative for many years to support local government units in their activities related to removing and cleaning the country of asbestos. It is about education, information and reliable inventory of products containing this harmful material. Detailed information about the Competition will appear on the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology's website at the end of February 2022.