The castle in Stobnica stays. The court decided

The building permit in Stobnica is important – said the Supreme Administrative Court on Monday and dismissed the cassation complaints regarding the investment famous all over Poland. The judgment is final and means that the building permit is important.

The castle in Stobnica is a multi -storey, stylized as a medieval, building built in Natura 2000 near Oborniki (Greater Poland Voivodeship). The investor received a building permit from the staroste of Obornica in 2015. The implementation became loud in the summer of 2018, when the then minister of the environment ordered an urgent control of the process of issuing a decision on construction. The case was also referred to the prosecutor's office.

The court dismissed the cassation of the Chief Building Supervision Inspector

On Monday Supreme Administrative Court dismissed cassation complaints submitted to the judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw (WSA), which in 2022 annulled the decision of the Chief Inspector of Construction Supervision (GINB) of 2021 an annulment of the decision on the building permit castle. The Provincial Administrative Court assessed that the statutory conditions for annulment of a building permit decision were not met in this case. The court also found that, according to the amendment to the construction law of September 2020, the possibility of annulment of the building permit in Stobnica was limited. Cassation to the Supreme Administrative Court submitted to the judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court, among others Ginb.

On Monday, the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the complaints of cassations submitted in this case, including by ginb. – The decision of the Obornicki staroste controlled in the proceedings is not affected by a defect in nullity – said judge Małgorzata Miron in the oral justification of the Monday decision of the Supreme Administrative Court. She added that in order to talk about a gross violation of law, a total of three premises must be met: the violation must be obvious, the violated provision is clear and does not require a complicated interpretation, and the socio-economic effects of violation are unacceptable in a state of law. – Taking into account these three circumstances, the first instance court rightly considered that the contested decision did not violate the provisions of the Construction Law indicated in cassation complaints – she added. The judge noted that in the case of the so -called The castle, the key to the conviction of public institutions was that the investment before issuing a building permit required a environmental decision. “It was in fact that it was the basis for the statement that the failure to expire such a decision has a effect in the form of a gross violation of law,” she said. The judge pointed out that one of the provisions that public institutions referred to, indicating the need to issue an environmental decision, was changed by the legislator in 2019. Precisely because of the difficulties with its interpretation. It was a regulation that determined, among others Parking space counting method. – So it is not only a court, but the legislator has already noticed doubts as to the application of this provision – she emphasized.

Read also: Two complaints regarding the castle rejected >>>

According to RDOŚ, the investment will have a negative impact on the environment

At the end of April 2019, the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Poznań annulled its decision of May 2015 determining the conditions for conducting investments in Stobnica and raised an objection to its implementation. In 2015, RDOŚ decided that the investment would not have a negative impact on the environment. Officials, however, decided that during the construction, the surface transformed for the needs of the project increased from previously declared about 1.7 ha to over 2 ha. According to the regulations, investments with an area of ​​more than 2 ha require a decision on environmental conditions. In the opinion of the Supreme Administrative Court, the architectural design did not show that the investment had to have an environmental decision issued. According to the Court, “the defect of the decision should be distinguished from its incorrect implementation”, and the issue of exceeding the limit during the performance of work cannot be examined in invalidity proceedings. – Any defect in implementation and related violations of environmental protection (…) may be and should be – if such circumstances took place – assessed in separate proceedings – said judge Miron.

She added that granting consent to the construction site without prior issuing of an environmental decision for the investment “in itself does not give rise to an automatic effect in the form of the need to annul this decision.” “No provision of the so -called assessment act indicates that the decision issued without such consent was automatically invalid. Therefore, such a defect should be assessed through the prism of the provisions regarding gross violation of the law” – the judge pointed out. She pointed out that in the case of the castle one cannot speak of the socio-economic investments unacceptable to the law, because the building permit does not violate the local spatial development plan. She also emphasized that the Poznań RDOŚ knew the details of the investment before issuing a permit for its implementation.

The role of the Supreme Administrative Court is not to study the issue of implementing an architectural project

The NSA also did not agree with the arguments of the prosecutor's office contained in the cassation appeal. – None of the circumstances indicated by the prosecutor could constitute grounds for annulment of the decision – the judge pointed out. She mentioned, among others The issue of the dominant, whose amount determined in the local development plan was to be exceeded by the castle contractors. The judge noted that this exceeding was not due to the architectural design. – The court, and earlier, the administrative body is obliged to assess the decision granting the building permit and approving the construction project, and not some circumstances that arose as a result of an incorrectly implemented investment – she said. She also pointed out that it is not the role of the Supreme Administrative Court to study the issue of proper implementation of the architectural project.

According to the court, the investment would also include the limitation period

The NSA also decided that if in the case of the so -called The castle in Stobnica had a gross violation of the law, the investment was limited by the amendment to the construction law of 19 September 2020 – according to this interpretation of this provision, according to the Supreme Administrative Court, a teleological interpretation speaks. Undoubtedly, the intention of the legislator amending the construction law by introducing the provision in question was to strengthen the principles of the durability of the administrative decision and the certainty of law. The purpose of introducing the limitation period is undoubtedly universal and assumption, this institution is to refer to all building permit decisions regardless of the date of their issue – the judge pointed out.

The case will go to the voivode again

The investor's attorney, lawyer Aneta Fornalik said that the Monday decision of the Supreme Administrative Court means that the case will again return to the consideration by the Greater Poland Voivode. “He will have to again decide whether there are grounds for annulment of a building permit,” she said. At the same time, she assessed that in view of the arguments in this case, mainly during the Supreme Administrative Court proceedings, re -repealing the building permit is unlikely. When asked, she admitted that the investment in Stobnica has not yet been completed. A final judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court means that the building permit is important.