Cooperativa Urbano Real Estate

The motto from the beginning of the company’s existence is: „We design and build apartments in which we would like to live ourselves”. Willa URBANO is a Developer Brand present in Poland since 2010. The company has so far implemented investments in two provinces.

The company has completed 3 projects, which are equipped with elevator lifts, smart home installations, air conditioning, electric car chargers, video intercoms with an IP gateway. Currently, the developer is interested in implementing photovoltaics.

Urbano is preparing further investments, which it intends to implement in a different way than before. Urbano’s intention is to establish a Housing Cooperative, which is a kind of private equity portfolio. The company advertises the project: ZAinwestuj, ZAmieszkaj, ZArabiaj, ZAżyj. Be „FOR.”

Some statistics to start with. As at the end of December 2020, the housing stock in Poland amounted to over 15.0 million apartments, with 57.4 million rooms, i.e. approximately 1,200 ml m2. Over 200,000 new apartments are built annually in the country. Currently, there are over 600 construction, housing and housing cooperatives operating in Poland. Over the past years, the cooperative stock has been losing its share of the national housing stock year on year. The offer of cooperative flats is decreasing. Looking at the statistics, the trend is clearly downward. Two thousand apartments a year produced by housing cooperatives constitute only 1 percent of the market, according to the portal Deweloperzy.info. According to data from the Central Statistical Office, 2021 was a record year in the country. As many as 235,000 of the apartments were completed, which is the best result in 40 years. So what do housing cooperatives do? Perhaps history is now full circle. In Poland, the first cooperatives were established in 1890 Bydgoska (Spółdzielnia Mieszkaniowa) and, also in 1890 in Poznań, Towarzystwo Pomoc (Spółka Budowlana) was established.

A new idea has appeared on the market. As we found out, the developer wants to establish a cooperative. It is about the construction of 64 two-room apartments with an area of 42 square meters. The investment is to be carried out next to a park with access to water. In the area of the investment, next to the multi-family building, a new Urbano Station will be built, i.e. a food court, a food court zone with a rich gastro offer, which will complement the service area for residents.

The construction project of Willa URBANO assumes the implementation of the investment through the Housing Cooperative. In the investment process planned for 3 years, modern apartments will be built in the fourth-storey multi-family building. As the architects plan, the project will use technologies used by Urbano so far. Photovoltaic panels in an unusual color will appear on the facades and the roof.

The new URBANO Villa will be implemented based on the adopted development plan, schedules, facility standard and construction budget. The investment will be carried out by a housing cooperative appointed for this task. The members of the Cooperative will be natural persons interested in the project, the number of which is limited by the number of premises planned for implementation in the investment. Those interested in joining the cooperative will register and be entered on the list of cooperatives. Members of the Cooperative will acquire the right to purchase the premises offered in the investment project by the Housing Cooperative at a very favorable price.

Why a Cooperative? – we asked President Gorączniak, owner of URBANO. The cooperative, semantically and historically, has rather bad connotations. Does it have a good connotation?

The national standards were in many cases destroyed and formally exhausted. Those cooperatives that are still operating, I have the impression, do not have many favorable opinions. Dairy Cooperatives, SPOŁEM, Labor Cooperatives, Municipal Cooperatives, Agricultural Cooperatives. So many of them have fallen. Others just can’t compete in the marketplace. Time is not kind to them. In the realities of the previous economic era, they usually functioned as monopolies – explains Gorączniak.

Together with our partners, we want to bet on a real Cooperativa (cooperative – editorial note), which will be a democratic economic union created by its members in order to implement the planned construction. We will administer the project, manage contracts for the benefit of all its members. My project is Willa URBANO, and drawing on South-European patterns, in the cooperative we want to implement an investment program, the transparency and benefits of which will be obvious to every member of the Cooperative – adds Urbano Rafał Gorączniak

The cooperative can be developed for economic purposes. It has been the most popular form of investing for over 100 years. Safe and financially beneficial. With us, it is created automatically, autonomously, as an association that aims to satisfy our desires, visions and the needs of implementing our plans – says Gorączniak.

Through a co-owned entity, by joining the forces of its members, we can implement our economic, social and cultural plans. We, as well as in Italy or in Spain, are looking for interdependent benefits in our cooperative. The members I talk to can also offer their quality, experience and products and services, thus reducing the risk of investment, providing new benefits in a joint project. Such support of the members of the cooperative is for me personally the values ​​of the cooperative in which I believe, this is the kind of cooperative real estate I want to manage. It does not bother me that the ownership of the enterprise will be more collective. I believe that equal rights and obligations, and this is obvious in a cooperative, will be the values ​​that will allow us to implement many projects – says Gorączniak, the initiator of the URBANO real estate cooperativa.

As we read in the issue draft of the Cooperativa i Urbano Real Estate project, each member of the URBANO Cooperative has the right to locate their services and goods in the investment and to actively participate in the construction process, as well as in maintenance and after-sales service. Owners of design companies, law firms, accounting offices, producers and suppliers of building materials, cleaning companies, property managers.

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Anyone who makes a construction contribution can allocate their services in the project will find an additional benefit in the investment – Goraczniak assures. Friends do it in Italy. Their cooperatives have been functioning well for decades. They do not fall, they are doing well. Why can’t we take advantage of proven patterns? Imitation is the highest form of recognition.

Drukuj