Church Land Ownership in Small Towns in Poland

Agnieszka Kwiatek-Sołtys

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7176-1910

Abstract

The landownership structure of towns seems to be an important element influencing their harmonious growth on one hand and the management of the urban space on the other. There are still important changes in this field in Poland, these changes go slowly but they should lead to the stabilization of the spatial structure of towns. The problem of land ownership is rather a new one in Polish research and geographical urban literature but it seems to be important also because of the current issues of privatisation and the difficult and complicated process of reprivatization of land and property. The land belonging to church in Poland make one of the land ownership groups which were reactivated in the 90ies. There are over 130 thousand hectares of land belonging to the church and denominational associations in Poland in 2007 what makes only 0,4% of the total area of the country. The paper shows the differentiation of the church land in smali towns where the average share is 1,23% of their area. The land usage within this ownership category is also presented. For 145 smali towns the land belonging to church consists of only bulit up area while in others it can also be used as the agriculture or forest area. The spatial distribution of churches’ plots, which is another important problem, is shown on few examples. It seems to be an important element influencing the towns' land policy as the reprivatisation process of the church land is not completly finished.

Keywords:

smali towns, land ownership structure, church property