In February, the Parliament will discuss the government's proposal on the Construction Act, which is supposed to enter into force from the beginning of 2025. The environmental committee made an extraordinary number of changes to the proposal and in its report agreed with the criticism regarding the incomplete and weak preparation of the law, which RT and numerous other parties have presented during the multi-year process.
On Friday, February 18, the Parliament's Environment Committee completed its report on the Construction Act and related subsidiary laws, of which there are 18 in total. After the vote, the Environment Committee advocated the adoption of the legislative proposals. In the committee, the representatives of the coalition and Basic Finns left their differing opinions on the bill and proposed rejecting the bill. (Committee report YmVM 27/2022 vp, HE 139/2022 vp).
The bill will advance to the parliament's plenary session in February, where the bills will be approved. The laws enter into force on January 1.1.2025, XNUMX.
About 50 different changes were made to the bill during the environment committee's consideration. This can be considered very exceptional, because usually only a few minor changes are made to the bills in parliamentary proceedings.
From the Environment Committee, full board to the Ministry of the Environment
The Environment Committee criticized the Ministry of the Environment for the decision to divide the provisions of the reform of the Land Use and Construction Act into two draft laws a year ago on a fast schedule, and for neglecting a proper opinion round after this. The Ministry continued to prepare the Construction Act, but left the sections of the MRL regarding land use unchanged. The Environment Committee stated the following in its report on the law preparation process:
"The reform of the provisions of the Land Use and Construction Act has been prepared for a long time with the contribution of the parliamentary monitoring group. According to the report received by the committee, the decision to separate the provisions on construction and land use into two different laws was made at the end of a preparation process that lasted approximately four years in the spring of 2022, just a few months before the government's presentation. Even though the questions included in the proposal had been prepared for a long time in a multi-member institution and with the participation of various stakeholders, no actual round of opinions was organized on the proposal after the provisions had been divided into two bills.
The procedure has been criticized in the statements received by the committee, and the committee considers this criticism justified. In addition, according to the committee's understanding, the regulations regarding zoning should have been reformed first, because construction is based on zoning.
In the committee's opinion, good law preparation involves consulting stakeholders in such a way that they are given an actual opportunity to familiarize themselves with the material that is the subject of the consultation and make a statement on the matter. In the opinion of the committee, the neglect of the opinion round has contributed to the fact that the proposal for a construction law included in the government's proposal has to be corrected in many places, and due to the proposal, technical corrections are made in the parliamentary proceedings to several laws that were not included in the government's proposal.
The committee is of the opinion that the Ministry of the Environment should pay attention to the quality of law preparation and compliance with the guidelines for the law preparation process. The committee considers it essential that the reform of the regulations regarding the use of areas and the decrees issued under the Construction Act be prepared carefully and by genuinely involving the stakeholders in the preparatory work."
The processing of the Construction Act and its supplementary laws has been a huge task for the various committees of the parliament and members of parliament. More than 30 stakeholders have been heard in the environmental committee alone, and around 40 expert opinions have been given to the committee. After the hearings, the proposal was discussed in more than ten committee meetings. In addition, the proposal was discussed in the Constitutional Law Committee and the Finance Committee, where a significant number of stakeholders were consulted.
The bill on the information system is also progressing
On February 16, the Environment Committee issued its report on the law on the built environment information system (RYTJ), which aims to digitize information related to construction permits and land use (Committee report YmVM 26/2022 vp, HE 140/2022 vp). The Environment Committee supported the motion and proposed several changes to the law. The law will advance to the plenary session of the parliament during February.
The RYTJ Act will enter into force on January 1, 2024. However, the municipality and the provincial federation may apply the provisions in force when this Act came into effect until the end of 2028, in terms of drawing up an individual plan or plot division.
The environmental committee also criticized this bill for, among other things, the lack of impact assessments and justifications for the bill. In its own statement, the Constitutional Law Committee (PeVL 82/2022 vp) drew attention to the shortcomings of the reasoning of the government's proposal and the technical problem areas of the regulations. Furthermore, the environmental committee paid attention to the quality of law preparation and compliance with the guidelines for law preparation.
The committee requires that regulations affecting the content and further development of the built environment information system be prepared in cooperation with stakeholders and especially representatives of the construction parties, and that an appropriate impact assessment of the regulations be prepared, which also presents the effects on the construction market, costs and the smoothness of permit processes.
The committee also made the following separate propositions for the RYTJ Act, which are at the end of the report:
1. The Parliament requires that the Ministry of the Environment takes seriously the criticism of the proposal by construction industry operators and that possible further development of the system is done in good cooperation with the industry operators and special attention is paid to the impact assessment.
2. The Parliament requires that the Government evaluates the risks related to the availability and accumulation of construction information as well as the confidentiality needs of the information in the work on the protection of information about safety-critical infrastructure.
3. The Parliament requires that, in connection with the Publicity Act and the Personal Data Act, the availability of building permit data for other than official use is critically examined.
In its member newsletter to be published on March 8, RT discusses the above-mentioned bills and their content in more detail, and analyzes the changes to the law during the parliament's deliberations.
More information
Anu Kärkkäinen, Director, Business Affairs, anu.karkkainen@rt.fi, tel. 050 337 6699
Jani Kemppainen, agent, construction development, jani.kemppainen@rt.fi, tel. 040 541 8090