Purpose. To show the scale and direction of recreational housing development within an area with high natural value. Steps to ensure the sustainable development of tourist settlement are discussed. Method. GIS analysis was performed based on archival and current orthophotomaps and planning documents existing at the municipal level complemented by fi eld inventory. Additionally, interviews with residents on PNP were employed. Findings. Four main categories of recreational housing were distinguished in the study area: compact second home estates around lakes, second home estates “attached” to villages; dispersed second homes, and old and new buildings integrated with the spatial layout of a village. The last category can be regarded as the most advantageous from an ecological, landscape and functional perspective but, unfortunately, it is the least common. The intensive development of the other categories poses a threat to the natural and tourist assets of a region. The area of recreational housing in the study area increased from 26 ha in 1992 to 156 ha in 2013, mainly in the form of separate, secondhome estates. Another 169 ha have been designated for recreational housing in the current planning documents. Most of the new areas are in the immediate vicinity of the national park boundary or on lakeshores. In view of such planning arrangements, one can expect further development of the negative trends in the expansion of recreational housing and degradation of the natural and tourist assets in other areas. Research limitations and conclusions. The quantitative analysis outside PNP did not include the number of old cottages converted into recreational homes. Practical implications. The results show that greater emphasis on hierarchical planning is necessary, starting from the boundaries of the entire West Polesie Biosphere Reserve to the municipality level. The comprehensive planning of entire tourist destinations, integrating permanent and seasonal settlements and taking into account the protection of nature as well as the most valuable tourist attractions, is no less important. At the same time, more stringent limits should be imposed on dispersed housing and monofunctional tourist housing enclaves. Originality. The phenomena described coincide with trends showed by other authors but it seems that compared to other parts of Poland, the scale of negative spatial phenomenon is higher, and according to other countries the role of spatial planning in coordinating second-home development is much smaller. Type of paper. The article is a case study based on cartographic quantitative analysis.