In Poland, the concept of ‘affordable housing’, as other countries might understand it, does not exist. While Polish housing policy encompasses municipal housing, social housing, and cooperative housing, it heavily favors the private ownership model. According to data published by the Central Statistical Office of Poland (GUS) in 2015, of the total completed dwellings, 53 percent were private and 42 percent were built for sale, while cooperative, social, and municipal projects accounted for only 3.5 percent. However, if one defines affordable housing as a significant number of dwellings developed as a direct result of housing policy, and designed for people who cannot afford to purchase on the open market, there are indeed some recent trends that would appear to satisfy the definition. Effective housing policy does not limit itself to financial matters but addresses multiple land issues, especially on a local level: unlocking land in appropriate locations; controlling – via local plans – the housing parameters, including density, intensity, and type; and managing existing housing resources.

In this paper, as a background to the evolving housing policy in Poland, three housing initiatives will present different approaches to informal housing delivery outside the mainstream of flat provision especially in regard to cooperation and legal frameworks – representing grassroots initiatives, top–down and bottom–up models.