The research problem addressed in the paper is the occurrence of undeveloped land on Silesian Metropolitan Area (MA Silesia), what is regarded as high importance for its implication on cities’ spatial order and real estate market. The purpose of the article is to investigate the nature of withholding the land from market and to provide the recommendations to municipalties’ authorities, likewise to contribute to the literature of time of land development. We conduct the analyse of elapse of time between acquisition of plots of land and application for the building permits among different market participants. We use the quantitative approach to research, particularly the survival analysis originated from statistical methods. Investigated data bases on merged two dataset: sales of landed properties and building permit decisions in MA Silesia, in year 2014-2019.  The most important findings are that the hazard of applying for building permits (proxy of developing the and) is higher when the market participant. Investors apply for building permits faster with plots of land for which Spatial Development Plan is approved than with those without one. One unit increase in price of land is associated with a 47% increase in hazard rate of land development. As our study shows that withholding the land occurs on MA Silesia, our recommendations for municipalities are the following: to use perpetual usufruct institution more efficiently, elaborate spatial development plans for whole metropolitan area, re-acquire land within 2-5 years if it is not developed, implement charges for not developing land in specific time, require of bank guarantee for finance construction before land allocation, and in general to run spatial policy in more sustainable direction, not focusing just to attract investors.