Urban planning Helsinki is planning an exceptional restriction: only certain types of buyers for the new area of ​​Mellunkylä

City|Town planning

Helsinki plans to increase the number of owner-occupied dwellings in Mellunkylä, Eastern Helsinki.

Two apartment buildings are planned in connection with the metro station, one of which could become a 16-storey landmark.

What is special about the destination is that the city intends to exclude large investors from home buyers. In addition, size requirements are set for the studios.

In practice Helsinki requires in the reservation conditions of the plot that at least one of the buildings is constructed as owner-occupied housing and that the owner-occupied dwellings must be marketed and sold to natural persons.

However, it is not possible to prevent entire homes from becoming investment targets, as a natural person can also buy an apartment and lease it onwards.

At least 40 per cent of the apartments must be family dwellings, ie triangles or larger, and 75 per cent of the studios must be at least 30 square meters in size. With this, the city is working to prevent problems related to mini-apartments.

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The Urban Environment Board gave the plan a green light at its meeting in mid-February. The matter is finally decided by the city council. The project also requires a change in the town plan.

In the works The new development is the first in Helsinki’s unregulated owner-occupied housing production, where the city pays special attention to the ownership base of housing.

The reason is that in recent years there have been operators in the production of non-subsidized owner-occupied housing who have acquired large quantities of non-subsidized rental housing.

It is not desirable for the city, says the Deputy Mayor of Helsinki and the Chairman of the Urban Environment Board Anni Sinnemäki (green).

The goal of Helsinki’s mixed housing policy is to have a variety of apartments in residential areas, from the city’s rental apartments to hard-earned housing apartments and from right-of-occupancy apartments to owner-occupied apartments.

Now Mellunkylä is an area dominated by rental housing.

“For this reason, a condition has been made for the sale of dwellings to natural persons in order to provide a more secure basis for the fact that the production of owner-occupied dwellings actually goes to the purchasers for their own use.”

Owned housing Increasing the number in the Mellunkylä area is also one way to prevent regional inequality and raise the profile of the poorly maintained metro station area, Sinnemäki says.

Mellunkylä is one of Helsinki’s three urban renewal areas, and the city is striving to increase its population.

The area is undergoing major changes in the coming years. It is planned to demolish seven apartment buildings from the 1960s, which will be replaced by 16 new ones.

There are similar plans in Helsinki in Vesala, part of Mellunkylä. The city wants to get rid of seven old apartment buildings to get more new housing there.

The changes are also linked to public transport reforms. Transport connections to the Mellunkylä region will improve in the future as new high-speed tram lines begin to serve the area’s residents in addition to the current metro.