In the last week of its session, on March 1, the Parliament approved the Construction Act and related supplementary laws. At the same time, the land use section of the Land Use and Building Act changes into the Area Use Act. The Construction Act enters into force on January 1.1.2025, XNUMX.
The construction law package has been a huge task for everyone involved in its multi-year preparation and ultimately for the various committees and MPs of the parliament. In the committees, stakeholders were heard more comprehensively than usual, and the processing of the presentation took considerable time.
Based on the environmental committee's report, the Parliament made no less than 50 different changes to the government's proposal, which can be considered very exceptional. The laws were approved by a voting decision when the opposition parties presented the rejection of the laws.
In addition, the Parliament approved the Act on the Built Environment Information System (RYTJ Act), which implements a national information system for information on the built environment, such as permits and zoning. The law will enter into force on January 1.1.2024, XNUMX.
What changes the most?
The biggest changes compared to the current state concern the requirements of low-carbon construction and digitalization. When applying for a building permit, a climate report must be presented, which reports the building's carbon footprint and carbon footprint. Limit values for the carbon footprint will be set later.
In the future, the building permit will be applied for in the form of a data model, and the project must present a material statement as well as a demolition and waste report. The contents of the required reports will only be specified by regulations, which do not yet exist.
"In general, it can be stated that with the laws, a huge number of different reports will have to be presented in connection with the construction project in the future. Bureaucracy is increasing even more, even if the need was to streamline and speed up construction processes," says the manager Anu Kärkkäinen Construction industry from RT.
The Parliament clarified the rather unclear regulation of the bill regarding the responsibility of the principal implementer. According to the Construction Act, the main contractor is responsible specifically for construction supervision, and the responsibility between the parties to the construction project is clearly determined according to the agreement between the parties.
Criticism should be taken into account in further work
The preparation of the bill in the Ministry of the Environment and the content of the law were subject to exceptionally strong criticism in the parliamentary proceedings, especially when the parliament had to make a large number of corrections to the bills. The Parliament also considered the criticism presented by stakeholders regarding the preparation to be justified. In the future, lessons must be learned from the shortcomings of law preparation.
The environmental committee specifically recorded in its report that the regulations to be issued under the Construction Act and the reform of the provisions of the Land Use Act must be prepared carefully and stakeholders must be genuinely involved in the preparatory work.
The Ministry of the Environment will prepare dozens of different regulations based on the now approved laws. In addition, for the next government term, there is a need to start the preparation of the law on land use, which was not implemented when the overall reform of the land use and construction law was shrunk only to change the construction section.
"In recent years, RT has participated in many ways in the preparation of the legislation and, among other things, produced reports and information as a basis for the work, but it has not been taken into account to a sufficient extent. In the future, we are ready to make our own contribution and bring a practical view of construction to the preparation of both regulations and the Land Use Act," states Anu Kärkkäinen.
See also
Anu Kärkkäinen, director, business policy affairs