After the new Land Use and Construction Act was split into two pieces of legislation, the Ministry of the Environment is now only moving forward with the Construction Act, and that too piece by piece. Most recently, the opinion had a law on the information system of the built environment, which is supposed to gather information about both land use and building permits. At the end of August, the comment period for establishing the construction qualification requirements for the law ends.
Photo: Hanne Salonen / Parliament
After the comprehensive reform of the Land Use and Construction Act fell into disparate views in early spring, the government has decided to move forward only with construction-related parts of the regulatory reform that was in the opinion. From the current Land Use and Construction Act, the sections concerning construction are being separated into the reformed Construction Act, and the sections concerning land use (zoning, land policy) are being left unchanged as the Land Use Act. MRL will cease to exist under its current name.
RT considers it problematic that the Ministry of the Environment did not organize a new round of opinions on the Construction Act after the legal package was split into two. The Legislation Evaluation Council has also stated that it could have been justified to hold a new round of opinions on the proposal, because removing land use from the proposal fundamentally changes the basic layout of the Construction Act.
The sections concerning the use of areas will no longer be changed during this government term. The proposal regarding the Construction Act is supposed to go to the parliament in September 2022. Based on the proposal, several decrees and laws will be issued, such as laws on information systems and establishing qualification requirements.
Information about the use of areas and building permits is required to be exported to the new information system
The round of opinions on the draft law on the built environment information system (RYTJ Act) ended in August. The purpose of the law is to implement a national digital register and information platform for data on the built environment, which will compile decisions on land use and information on building permits.
Plans under preparation, such as provincial, general and station plans in various stages of their preparation and plot divisions should be submitted to the information system. Saving this information in the system would be the responsibility of municipalities and provinces. The law includes a transition period of five years for data on the use of areas.
According to the new law, data generated in the construction permit should also be transferred to the same system. What information is required to be transferred will be regulated in more detail by regulations based on the Construction Act and the RYTJ Act.
The Finnish Environment Agency (SYKE) would maintain the information system, and it would have the obligation to establish a public information service for the sharing of information and to compile statistics. The built environment information system is supposed to be put into use at the beginning of 2024, when the RYTJ and the Construction Act would also enter into force.
In its statement, Rakennusteollisuus RT considers the goals of the bill to be good and worthwhile. However, the disadvantages and problems of the reform for different actors, such as resource requirements and cost requirements for municipalities of different sizes and for different actors, have remained missing in the impact assessments. The fast schedule of the law reform adds to the challenge. The presentation also has fundamental problems, such as ownership of information, rights of use and the price of obtaining information.
"On the basis of the proposal regarding the Construction Act, a decree will be issued later on the information required for the building, permit decisions and planning and data models for the building. Because of this, making a statement on the content of the RYTJ bill has been challenging, when the actual content of the regulation is still open," says the director responsible for preparing the statement Anu Kärkkäinen from RT.
A separate law on establishing qualification requirements is being prepared
At the moment, the statement also has a law on establishing qualification requirements for construction. The law would include provisions on the institution authorized to issue certificates of construction qualifications. The certificate would include a publicly reliable report on the competence of the designer and the work management, which is used to demonstrate the competence for the design and work management task to the construction supervision in an individual construction project.
Qualification refers to a combination of education and experience. The actual Construction Act stipulates the levels of the construction project, which are exceptionally demanding, very demanding, demanding, usual and minor tasks, which are carried out by the building control of the qualification inspection. The opinion period ends at the end of August and RT is about to issue its own opinion on the law.
Nowadays, the qualifications of designers and foremen are assessed for each project individually and locally by the building control as part of the eligibility review, in which case the designer or foreman submits a report on his training and experience separately for each project.
Read the statement here
Anu Kärkkäinen, director, business policy affairs