The process of urban expansion is increasingly encompassing suburban areas, in particular undeveloped agricultural areas. As a result of this process, functional changes and increasingly complex spatial structures can be seen in rural areas. Multiple interactions inevitably arise between the elements of these structures, including functional and spatial confl icts. Spatial planning is a tool for advance identifi cation, and in many cases for elimination of such confl icts. The aim of the article is to assess the impact of the suburbanization process on the spatial structure of a suburban commune as well as the identifi cation of individual types of confl icts. This study concerns spatial planning in the rural Strzyżewice commune. The subject of the analyses are confl icts of interest revealed during the preparation of planning documents. Based on the analysis of documentation prepared during the development of local planning documents it was confi rmed that the suburbanization processes of the city of Lublin created specifi c -real or potential -spatial confl icts in the areas subjected to these processes.