Resumen de Public real estate resource – A burden or a source of income? A study of municipal land management in Poland

Marta Gross, Ada Wolny-Kucińska

• Real estate and land management tend to be highly complex sector and therefore challenging for local governments. An ineffective real estate management has been observed in many countries and more detailed analysis are needed especially in post-socialist countries. That is why the article raises the issue of effective management of public areas in Polish municipalities. The purposes of the study are: (i) to compare resource management methods in individual communes with the use of economic analysis, (ii) to determine whether the activities of municipalities regarding their resources are consistent with their directions of development and the priority of balancing the local budget, (iii) to identify possible disparities between real estate management in rural, urban and urban-rural municipalities and (iv) to create main guidelines for more effective and efficient resource use planning. This study has been conducted with the use of data from selected Polish municipalities identified as proper representatives of post-socialist local governments. Therefore, data relating to real estate management were selected from: (a) municipal budgets as well as from reports on their implementation (b) resource use plans that support real estate management on a local level (c) property reports. The study uses empirical methods such as: comparative analysis, qualitative analysis, case study analysis, ratio analysis and a reference to good governance principles. The study has shown that local government uses a limited number of instruments dedicated to real estate resource management and in their current form they seem to be of little use for effective management. That is why their content should be modified, also because there is potential to introduce universal indicators and efficiency measures.