On March 1.3.2023, 1.1.2025, the Parliament approved the Construction Act. Originally, the plan was to reform the land use section of the Land Use and Construction Act, but its reform will be the responsibility of the future government. The law enters into force on January XNUMX, XNUMX.
A significant number of changes were made to the Construction Act in connection with the parliamentary hearing. It is not usual in law preparation, as is the criticism given by the parliament to the Ministry of the Environment. It is worth noting that, based on a broad law, a huge number of decrees will be issued, in which the actual content, or "steak", will only be specified. The settings are still largely unfinished. The most significant changes in the reform are related to digitalization and climate issues.
New explanations
The building must be designed and built to be low carbon. This is demonstrated in connection with the building permit with a climate survey, where the carbon footprint and carbon footprint of the building are estimated by calculation. A limit value for the carbon footprint will be set later in the regulation.
Sustainable and long-lasting building stock is sought with the obligation to prepare a material statement of the materials used in the project, so that they could be reused and utilized as materials. In addition, a demolition material and construction waste report must be prepared, which contains an estimate of the demolition material and waste used in the project.
Qualification register for qualifications
Today, building control assesses the qualifications of designers and corresponding foremen in each project. In the future, building control will check the qualifications of the persons against the certificate, which would be issued by an institution authorized by the Ministry of the Environment.
The qualification classification would be influenced by the person's education and experience as before. It is desirable that there would be more bodies awarding qualifications in order to make the competition a reality. The qualification is based on the difficulty categories of the tasks, as it is today, however, changing to five levels. The reform reduces the current bureaucracy of building control. The downside is that qualification applicants incur costs for obtaining the certificate.
Principal responsible implementer
In connection with the preparation, it was quite difficult to implement Sanna Marini registration of the government program, according to which "the responsibility of the principal implementer is recorded in the law". According to the Construction Act, a principal responsible implementer can be appointed for a construction project, in which case his task is to take care of the implementation of essential technical requirements in the project in relation to construction supervision.
If the main contractor is not named, the person undertaking the construction project will take care of the task in question. The building control supervises the implementation of the requirements from the point of view of the public interest. Designation has no effect on the contractual relationship between the main contractor and the customer, for example regarding warranty conditions.
The freedom of contract therefore remains regardless of whether or not the principal responsible implementer is appointed for the project. However, it must be stated that the registration of the law has not been successful, and taking it into account will bring challenges for the project parties and building supervision in the future.
Claims regarding data models
The building permit must be applied for in data model format or in machine-readable format. When applying for a permit, a plan model of the building must be drawn up, including information about the relevant building and building parts, which will be completed as an implementation model at the end of the project. The more detailed content requirements of these will be regulated by regulations.
As part of the reform, the Act on the Built Environment Information System (RYTJ Act) was enacted, which creates a national information system for, among other things, plan information and the above-mentioned information about buildings. It is also worth mentioning in the new law that in the future there will be only one form of permit, the construction permit, and the operation permit will be waived.
The article has been published In Taloteikniak magazine on 27.6.2023 June XNUMX.
Anu Kärkkäinen
Director, Economic Policy Affairs
anu.karkkainen@rt.fi + 358 50 337 6699Building Construction Industry Association
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