Osiedle bezdomnych kochanków

How to build? With local materials… So, with clay? That is one idea. In Germany and Romania it is even used quite often. In Poland an “experimental” two-storey building made of this material was going up in Malichy near Warsaw. So it seems that this will be the future of “Osiedle Młodych” too. But the commissioned surveys bring disappointment: there is no clay in the trial pits! There is sand, admittedly, which can be used to make concrete products, but no clay! What now? A new idea appears: a field plant making cement bricks and wood-chip and gypsum blocks will be set up on the estate site, with concrete elements to complete the whole. And brick “obtained” from the demolition of former German forts in Kostrzyn nad Odrą.

The estate goes up on fallow land and ploughed fields. There is no water supply, no sewerage, no gas. Central heating boiler houses and a power line have to be designed. None of the state design offices (and there were no others) wants to take this on quickly. Black despair. Once again, enthusiasm crashes against the wall of everyday life…

So the cooperative sets up its own design office. It is headed by Stefan Ciechanowicz, then a young engineer and the architect of the experimental building in Malichy mentioned above. He brings into the team architects who also work at design offices or companies with a decisive say in the so-called implementation approvals. This really does make it possible to design the whole estate within 6 months! The engineers Tadeusz Kobylański and Stefan Ciechanowicz (who still lives on the estate) and their team will receive an award from the Committee for Town Planning and Architecture for it in 1957.

On 15 June 1957, in the foundations of the “point block” now at Szklanych Domów 7b, the cooperative’s vice-chair, the journalist Ewa Wacowska, accompanied by the Minister of Construction, the Mayor of Warsaw and other dignitaries, ceremonially places the foundation act of the estate under construction and sets the cornerstone. A sealed metal box, which also holds a copy of “Sztandar Młodych”, still lies under this block today.

Building begins. First the two-storey blocks at Garwolińska 26 and 26a. Then more, going up faster now, because the home-made way of building happily loses out to reality. Building materials are scarce, there are no legal regulations, the investment managers change (three times in a short period), and in the end Chairman Goskrzyński himself has had “enough”. He resigns.

And since the party authorities are starting to look more favourably on the housing cooperative movement emerging all over the country, “Osiedle Młodych” too is given quite a different status, somewhat state-run, but with good results.

The new chairman, engineer Tadeusz Bilewicz, is granted the right to give up building the estate by the direct-labour method, and he eagerly takes it: the construction is entrusted to professionals from KBM Warszawa Praga. The problems with getting building materials, machinery and fittings for the flats come to an end (by the standards of the time). In 25 months, 27 buildings with nearly 780 flats go up. History records the first tenants: in the building at Garwolińska 26a the first keys go to citizens and founding members Latoszek, Osiekowicz, Balana, Dworecki, Wesołowski, Jakubiak and Tłustochowicz. Then others follow. By January 1959, 67 members of the cooperative (that is, young workers from Warsaw factories) are already living on the estate, and new buildings go up every month.

And then… And then in 1961 the cooperative is granted perpetual usufruct of “its” land. In the next 55 years only one more building will go up here, in 1966. The “young workers” of Warsaw’s factories marry, their children are born, and the buildings age, perhaps even faster than blocks of the same age on other estates, because for years they were not properly maintained and repaired. The “Osiedle Młodych” cooperative grows and branches out, having less and less in common with the roots it grew from.

And about 1,500 people live “on the family land”. In 2004 they leave the “Osiedle Młodych” cooperative and now call their home ground SM “Szaserów”. It was recently entered in the register of historic monuments; residents joke that the age of the main tenants was probably taken into account. More than 20 per cent of them are already over 80, and more than 60 per cent are older than the estate’s first buildings… A distinctive site, huge by the capital’s standards, where the residents of 28 mostly low buildings have as much as 8 hectares of land to look after. It takes some financial gymnastics to keep it up.

But from the start of this text we have said that this estate is unlike any other… Just as when things were bad before (when difficulties piled up at the start of the building work), so now too they know how to reach for unconventional methods. Because, on the whole, things went badly until 2010: until then the new cooperative had no luck in choosing managers who could cope with the enormity of the tasks. The Supervisory Board, the Management Board and the cooperative members themselves could not agree on which way to go. Everyone knew that renovation was needed, and quickly, but with what money?! How to raise the funds? What first? And there was one quarrel after another. No Supervisory Board completed its term, and no Management Board lasted long enough to put its vision into practice.

In 2010 everyone had probably had enough and… at last governing bodies were formed that lasted their terms and did what the tenants had been waiting for. The estate was modernised. All the buildings were insulated, their façades were changed, the electrical wiring and heat exchanger stations were replaced, the dangerous gas water heaters were removed, and all the staircases were renovated and painted, all within a short period of 6 years.

– Between 2010 and 2015 we spent more than PLN 21 million on repairs and modernisation, Krzysztof Jurewicz, chairman of the board of SM Szaserów since 2010, tells “Mieszkaniec”.

– That is the equivalent of more than 20 years of the cooperative’s renovation fund. Where did we get the money? From various sources. Among other things, we used a thermal modernisation loan from a special fund set up by the Council of Ministers for buildings put up before 1961 (which gives a special additional bonus for the work done). This loan is not secured on the residents’ property; the collateral is the renovation fund. Through “Veolia” we used the so-called Swiss funds, which support the modernisation of heating networks. With the consent of the cooperative’s members we sold two plots that belonged to us: a “Biedronka” shop was built on one, and on the other a developer is just finishing a residential building. All this made it possible to carry out such a huge amount of renovation work without any risk to solvency and without losing financial liquidity. Throughout this period, and now, the Cooperative’s financial situation has been stable.

– Nothing, I repeat, nothing in the cooperative movement will succeed if its governing bodies, the Supervisory Board and the Management Board, do not work together and do not have the support of the cooperative’s members. We succeeded because from the start we have been going in the same direction, says vice-chair Ewa Łukszo. – In 2010 Ms Magdalena Dobrzyńska became chair of the Supervisory Board, a new Management Board was formed and slowly, despite the members’ considerable mistrust at first, things began to fall into place. Now the Management Board works in a completely different atmosphere because, I think, we have proved that we work for the good of this estate. We have renovated the buildings, and we look after the greenery (we have more than 550 trees alone!) and these large, beautiful grounds without placing much of a burden on residents’ budgets. Mr Andrzej Rajkiewicz now chairs the Supervisory Board, and together with him we are starting new projects, including the seniors’ project.

Friendly to seniors

In 2005 the Sejm passed the so-called Seniors’ Act. It obliges the government to monitor the situation of older people, in order to prevent their exclusion and to encourage action that improves their position in society.

Vice-chair Ewa Łukszo:

– We welcomed the passing of this act with joy. We live with the concerns of our estate’s residents, and it is a particular estate. 65 per cent of its 1,500 residents are over fifty, 23 per cent are aged 61–80, and 22 per cent are over eighty. Many of these people built their own flats or helped to fit them out with their own hands. So they are deeply attached to their home ground. Advice that, when they can no longer walk, they should move in with their children or to a building with a lift on another estate is not for them. Emotionally, such a move is out of the question. This is where you can best see the truth of the saying that you don’t transplant old trees…

Membership and housing inspector Natalia Lewkowicz:

– In short, this estate has to become friendlier to the many seniors living here. We decided to approach it professionally, once the real needs had been identified. In March this year the new Chair of the Supervisory Board, Mr Andrzej Rajkiewicz, contacted the Institute of Social Policy at the University of Warsaw, and as a result it was decided to work together on research. It will be carried out on the estate by a team made up of Professors Barbara Szatur-Jaworska and Barbara Rysz-Kowalczyk and Dr Aleksandra Zubrzycka-Czarnecka. There will be an assessment of seniors’ needs, a map of support institutions, a diagnosis of the state of care and, most importantly, a plan of remedial action. The research has already begun. The first interviews with our seniors will be conducted by the “Cotopaxi” Film Workshop Association, and later ones by University of Warsaw students on placements. The record of these interviews and consultations will be the basis for the work on the assessment of seniors’ needs.

Chairman Krzysztof Jurewicz:

– Without waiting for the results of this research, we are doing the obvious things. We organise outdoor events and picnics for our seniors to make their lives more pleasant. They take the form of, for example, concerts under the windows, where residents listen to the music from their balconies, or sitting on benches or on their own chairs. We make contact with non-governmental organisations that have interesting things to offer people aged 50+, and we tell our residents about the opportunities they can take up. Many residents have problems walking or with their hearts. There is no room for lifts in the two-storey buildings, although lifts would make getting around much easier for them, but we want to install internal lifts at least in the few 4-storey buildings we have on the estate. The possibilities are there, and we will apply for funding (including European funding) for this. The cooperative spoke up in the public consultation on Warsaw’s development strategy to 2030, raising the problem of fitting lifts to residential buildings put up in the 1950s and 1960s, when there were no relevant technical requirements yet.