Shelters in underground garages and excavations. The Ministry of Interior and Administration provided details of the regulation

• We are familiar with the draft regulation of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration on the conditions for organizing and requirements that should be met by places of emergency shelter.
• The new Act on Population Protection and Civil Defense places the obligation to organize them, among others, on local governments.
• It is expected that buildings, underground garages, tunnels, earth structures and even excavations will be able to be adapted as temporary shelters.

On January 1, 2025, the Act on Population Protection and Civil Defense came into force . The regulation allows for the creation of a population protection system, which in the event of war can be transformed into civil defense. The government will spend no less than 0.3 percent of GDP annually on implementing new solutions.

There will soon be 18 regulations to this act, a population protection program will be created, there will be large funds for the construction of shelters and the renovation of the alarm notification system, for educating citizens on this issue

- announced Tomasz Siemoniak, Minister of Interior and Administration, on January 20.

The draft regulation is posted below the article.

The regulation specifies:

• types of buildings in which it is planned to organize places of temporary shelter by adapting the space of buildings or creating places for the temporary hiding of people.
• activities performed during the organization of temporary shelters in adapted spaces in buildings, including, among others, the selection, checking and recording of buildings that are useful due to their structure and equipment as temporary shelters and, in hazardous conditions, ordering their adaptation, as well as the adaptation by the owner or manager of spaces indicated by the civil protection body to perform the function of a collective protection facility, in order to make them available for the purposes of civil protection. In addition, it was indicated what activities should be performed in order to adapt the facility to perform the function of a collective protection facility.
• technical conditions regarding the structure of a building (ceilings and walls) that a building that may be planned to serve as a place of temporary shelter must have.
• technical and operational conditions that must be met in order for buildings, construction works or their parts to be planned to be used as temporary shelter places or deemed suitable for adapting temporary shelter places.

It also indicates the possibility of preparing a place of temporary shelter in the form of a free-standing temporary shelter in the event that it is not possible to provide a sufficient number of protective places in adapted rooms of buildings, and indicates the activities carried out as part of the organisation of places of temporary shelter in places prepared for the temporary hiding of people.

The regulation specifies the types of freestanding buildings that, when constructed temporarily, may constitute a place of temporary shelter, which include air raid slits, trenches, and dugouts . It is specified that the capacity of temporary shelter in a freestanding form may not exceed 300 people, and in the case of shelters with a capacity of no more than 25 people, it is permissible to use trenches instead of air raid slits.

The tasks imposed in the regulation on individual administrative units are as follows:

• Voivodes: Planning the number and capacity of collective protection facilities and ordering the inspection of a building in terms of meeting or the possibility of meeting the conditions for collective protection facilities. Organizing places of temporary shelter and considering appeals against decisions of commune heads (mayors, city presidents) and starosts in these matters.
• District Officers: Planning the number and capacity of collective protection facilities and ordering the inspection of a building in terms of meeting or the possibility of meeting the conditions for collective protection facilities. Organizing places of emergency shelter.
• Mayors (mayors, city presidents) : Current review of buildings in order to select buildings that may be recognized as collective protection facilities. Planning the number and capacity of collective protection facilities and ordering the inspection of a building in terms of meeting or the possibility of meeting the conditions for collective protection facilities. Organizing places of emergency shelter.
• Legal entities, individuals, enterprises, cooperatives and housing communities: Organising places of emergency shelter by ordering the adaptation of premises in buildings, underground garages, tunnels, earth structures, excavations and similar facilities to serve as a collective protection facility.

The project was submitted for opinion to the chairman of the Public Benefit Committee, as well as to the voivodes. As part of public consultations, it was submitted to: the Association of Polish Architects, the Chamber of Architects of the Republic of Poland, the Institute of Protective Construction Association and the Polish Association of Developer Companies.