Balcony tax in another city. Not everyone will pay it
Poznań residents who have balconies extending beyond the outline of the building will pay a special tax. This does not apply to all buildings, and the fee depends on the floor on which the apartment is located. Similar fees apply in several cities.
The Poznań City Roads Authority will collect fees for building elements whose outline encroaches on urban space. The decision was made by councilors on Tuesday. The fee will apply only to newly built apartments in which balconies protrude over the city sidewalk.
The fee will also cover stairs, ramps and other elements that are included in the so-called Lane. Agata Kaniewska, spokeswoman for the Municipal Roads Authority in Poznań, explained in an interview with the media that the new fee “is not a tax, but more precisely a public charge of a non-tax nature regulated on the basis of other acts.”
She added that “the resolution adopted recently by the Poznań City Council concerned the amount of toll rates for the occupation of public roads within the administrative boundaries of the city of Poznań.”
Balcony tax in Poznań. How much will it be?
The fee will depend on the floor. Residents of the lowest-lying apartments will pay the most – in the case of the ground floor, it will be even over PLN 180 per year. The rates will be PLN 1 (above 2.5 m) or PLN 10 (up to 2.5 m) per day per square meter.
What causes differentiation? As ZDM director Krzysztof Olejniczak explains, 2.5 m is the space in which pedestrians move. Higher elements do not impede traffic, so the minimum rate will be applied.
Poznań officials have not come up with a fee for a balcony protruding above the sidewalk: similar taxes apply, among others, in: In SZczecinek, Lublin, Kraków and Gliwice.
Cities are obliged to collect fees for occupying road lanes
A few years ago, Mateusz Dulewicz, chief promotion and media contact specialist at the Szczecinek City Hall, said in an interview with Infor that “aboutthe payment “for occupying the right-of-way of municipal roads” is neither a new tax nor an additional burden for residents or investors.
– On the contrary. Thanks to the resolution, we protect residents and their wallets against higher fees. According to the resolution in force so far, the fee for each day the road lane was occupied by other structures was PLN 0.40 per 1 sq m. surface. According to the current interpretation and case law of courts, local government units are obliged to collect such a fee. However, to meet the expectations of residents and investors, the city of Szczecinek decided to create a catalog of facilities, including: balconies, loggias, bay windows, building connectors, photovoltaic installations and facade insulation elements – said Dulewicz.
He added that “the need to include the fee results from the fact that an increasing number of buildings are constructed in such a way that their face is located on the border of the plot and the road, and the protruding parts are already within the road.”
