Recent years have brought enormous legislative turmoil in Poland concerning the so-called Distance Act, formally known as the Act of 20 May 2016 on Investments in Wind Power Plants. This act has undergone several amendments and serious drafts (parliamentary and governmental), which were so advanced that it is worth attempting a brief summary and overcoming the enormous amount of information noise in this area. Ultimately, it is worth answering the basic question: does a wind farm have to maintain 500 meters, 700 meters or some other clearly defined distance from the windows of my house?

Currently, the basic limit for locating wind turbines in relation to residential buildings in Poland is 700 meters. The end of the current political debate on the maximum distance seems to be marked by the presidential veto, which the ruling coalition does not have enough votes to reject. However, this precise figure is a considerable simplification. An extremely strict basic rule of ten times the total height of a wind farm still applies, as does the obligation to determine the location of such investments in local spatial development plans (MPZP). On the other hand, when it comes to the need to locate a residential house, a potential investor does not have to follow the 10h limit and may apply a distance of 700 meters, with the possibility to construct such a building not only on the basis of the MPZP, but also on the basis of a decision on land development conditions (WZ) or a decision on the location of a public purpose investment (LICP). It is worth noting that the 10h rule is still the applicable distance. Nevertheless, assuming that in a given municipality a wind power plant will be built only if an MZPZ is enacted, the practice of applying these regulations will ultimately lead to the obligation to maintain a distance of 700 meters.

The specific application of this distance and its correct calculation also encounter certain complications. For example, the distance between the window of a residential building and the foundation or tower of a wind turbine is certainly not a correctly calculated distance. This is because the regulations take into account the extreme position of the blades in the case of wind turbines and the horizontal projection in the case of residential buildings (although here too, the extreme elements of such a horizontal projection should still be taken into account; manipulating the distance, even by taking the projection of the building’s foundations, seems to contradict the purposive interpretation of the Act). In addition, the regulations, which are planning-related in nature, rightly establish separate rules for already existing residential buildings (or existing power plants) and separate rules for structures and buildings to be constructed, in other words, those that do not yet exist. Thus, we sometimes consider the boundaries of the development and sometimes the floor plan of the building. The word “separate” should be emphasised here because a number of rules that the legislator included in Articles 4a and 5 of the Distance Act have the form of a separable alternative, that is, among a number of potential rules to be applied for calculating the distance between a given residential building and a power plant, there should be only one rule for calculating the distance.

This matter can be summarised in the simplest conceivable way. For existing residential buildings and those under construction (the decisive factor is the moment when a given building has already obtained a building permit or when the architectural and construction administration authority has not raised any objections after its construction has been reported), the distance should be measured from their horizontal projections. For any residential buildings planned, i.e. prior to their construction, the decisive factor is the line of the land on which such a building may be constructed in the future. Given the low coverage of Polish municipalities with development plans, in practice this is most often the boundary of the area covered by the WZ decision. Alternatively, in the few places in the country where development plans are in force, it will be the boundary line of the area where development in the form of residential buildings is permitted. As can be seen, this type of distance calculation causes certain difficulties for the location of wind farms, especially before a building permit is granted or construction is notified, as their towers and rotors will in practice be much further away from houses than the famous 700 meters.