Masovian Voivodeship. Eastern Bypass of Warsaw. The court ruling postpones the start of construction

The judgment concerns the shorter of the two planned sections of the Warsaw Eastern Bypass (WOW) from Drewnica to Ząbki.

The matter is complicated. In October 2023, the Provincial Administrative Court will repeal the decision of the General Directorate for Environmental Protection. The decision of GDOŚ, in turn, overturned the entire decision of the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Białystok and discontinued the administrative proceedings regarding the issue of a decision on environmental conditions for the last fragment of the Warsaw bypass.

To better understand what Thursday's, the seventh judgment announced in this case, involves, we need to go back nine years.

In 2015, the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways submitted an application to the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Warsaw to issue an environmental decision for the Warsaw Eastern Bypass. This is a very important document that allows you to obtain a building permit in the next stage.

In the project, road workers led the route from the Warszawa Wschód junction in Zakręt, through the embankment in the center of Wesoła and further through Ząbki to the S8 route.

Less than two years later, it turned out that the director of the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Warsaw lived near the planned route. In order not to be accused of bias, he decided to exclude the capital RDOŚ from the decision-making procedure. The WOW case was brought to the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Białystok.

In February 2021, a dispute began that continues to this day. Then the General Director for Environmental Protection overturned the environmental decisions issued by the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Białystok. He indicated that there were no legal grounds to transfer the issue of the Warsaw bypass to Białystok.

The dispute goes to the Provincial Administrative Court and then to the Supreme Administrative Court. And so, for three years, judgments are passed in courts, against which GDOŚ and ecological associations file appeals and cassation complaints.

Thursday's judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court is the seventh concerning the dispute over RDOŚ in Białystok.

In April, the judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court became final and annulled the decision of GDOŚ for the longer section of WOW, from the Wschód junction in Zakręt to Ząbki. According to the court's ruling, GDOŚ did not sufficiently analyze whether the decision to revoke the decision issued by GDOŚ in Białystok was correct. – GDOŚ is re-examining the case – commented Joanna Niedźwiecka, spokeswoman for GDOŚ.

In turn, representatives of GDDKiA openly admit that the prolonged procedure for issuing an environmental decision is not the only obstacle to starting the construction of the bypass.

– The challenge is that the route documentation was prepared almost 10 years ago. This means that the conditions have most likely changed – notes Szymon Piechowiak, spokesman for GDDKiA. He adds that when it comes to design documentation, changes in the development (e.g. a new housing estate or energy network could have been built) and in the environment (e.g. changes in animal migration routes) are considered.