ECONOMIC POTENTIAL OF THE COMMUNE

The Czarny Dunajec commune is a friendly and at the same time attractive commune for rest and recreation. The commune uses its tourist potential by combining the landscape and natural values as well as the richness of the regional culture and tradition, caring for sustainable development, creating favorable conditions for its guests. The landscape of the commune has high aesthetic values. On the one hand, it is influenced by the location and shape of the commune - with the valley located in the center and the surrounding ranges of hills and the view of the mountain ranges - including the Tatra Mountains.

The following tourist attractions operate in the commune:

• bicycle routes - about 70 km,
• ice rink,
• sports infrastructure for rent (halls, sports fields, including a pitch with artificial turf),
• Chochołowskie Termy Aquapark has almost 3,000 m ² of water and 30 swimming pools,
• environmental education paths and facilities, including the Peatland Promotion and Protection Center in Chochołów,
• numerous hiking and walking routes,
• developing horse tourism.

In the commune there are also Natura 2000 areas, protected landscape areas, numerous sacred monuments, including the center of the village of Chochołów, which is under conservation protection, constituting the so-called a living open-air museum with traditional buildings in the Podhale style and the center of Czarny Dunajec.

The commune, with about 20,000 inhabitants, has huge non-urbanized areas, constituting agricultural and forest space - mostly valuable in terms of nature. This presents great potential for hiking and biking. The central part, with a flat terrain, is a convenient area for family and amateur tourism, while the southern and northern part of the commune, with the ranges of the Gubałowskie Foothills and the Beskid Mountains, is a space for more demanding tourism, as well as for potential ski runs (favorable climate, snow conditions).

In accordance with the provisions of the Development Strategy of the Czarny Dunajec Commune for 2014-2020, the development of the unused economic potential of the commune is influenced by the following measures:

• Reserving economically attractive areas for investments in the commune's spatial development plans: attractive location of the commune (values for tourist investments, proximity to the state border, peat resources, etc.) may constitute its significant investment position. The key factor attracting potential investors may be economic activity zones, i.e. areas specially separated and prepared for investment, with technical infrastructure. An extremely important factor is also the transport accessibility of Czarny Dunajec, which should be significantly improved by 2020 (construction of an expressway from Lubń to Nowy Targ). The role of the commune authorities in this area is the appropriate spatial policy, taking into account land consolidation, inclusion of land owned by entrepreneurs into economic zones, and changes in land use in the local spatial development plan. A great difficulty in this respect in the area of the commune of Czarny Dunajec is the small amount of land suitable for economic investment - Natura 2000 areas, topography, floodplains, fragmentation of land, etc. Nevertheless, the next financial perspective of the European Union (2014-2020) will promote tasks in this field and it is necessary to gradually overcome these barriers and use EU funds.
• Creating economic activity zones, incl. in cooperation with commercial entities - limited resources of local government areas, fragmentation of land, legally protected areas, or topography are barriers that are not conducive to the organization of compact economic zones. In particular, the lack of communal areas suitable for economic investment poses great difficulties in this respect. The next financial perspective for 2014-2020 provides for mechanisms of cooperation with private partners in this area, which is a fundamental issue for Małopolska (as a region with the greatest fragmentation of land). Tools in the form of land purchases by local government, acquisition of the State Treasury land, exchange and lease will be justified elements of the projects to create economic activity zones.
• Improving the transport accessibility of economic activity zones - Arrangement and investment preparation of land intended for economic investment and opening a new land stock (e.g. through communication infrastructure). These activities will be supported in the new financial perspective for 2014-2020 by EU funds. These measures should take into account compact zones with private land.
• Improvement of investor service standards - the direction of the intervention is aimed at improving the procedures for servicing investors interested in investing in the commune. These activities can be defined by the application of a "fast track administration" and guardianship of specific investments. In the case of the commune of Czarny Dunajec, this may apply, for example, to investments in the field of tourism. Helping investors to overcome legal complexities and bureaucracy, also through contact with other levels of local government and institutions involved in the investment process, in order to accelerate decision-making procedures.