Helsinki raps developers for tiny and poorly designed apartments in new buildings

Developers divide larger flats of original designs into small one-bedroom units

print this

The City of Helsinki has voiced concerns over the new construction trend whereby developers pack newly-built apartment buildings full of tiny studios and one-bedroom flats.
      Furthermore, the flats are poorly designed, the city charges. Their windows face one direction only, in many cases north.
      Often the kitchen and the dining area are totally windowless.
      In addition, the apartments tend to be long and narrow and therefore difficult to furnish.
     
The stairways are often equipped with spiral staircases to minimize the use of space.
      The hallways become dark and labyrinthine, because of the substantial depth of the frame of the buildings.
      “The economic crisis is having an effect on the quality of housing planning and design. At the moment the quality does not meet with the objectives set for urban living”, criticises Helsinki Deputy Mayor Hannu Penttilä.
      Penttilä bases his criticism on a recent report by the Helsinki Building Control Authority.
      Penttilä has already approached all the developers operating in the area with a letter on the subject.
     
The Building Control Authority has noticed that the developers frequently apply for changes to already-approved building permits.
      Almost without exception, the developers have removed from the original plans the large three and four-bedroom apartments extending through the building, by dividing them into one-bedroom flats with kitchenettes.
     
The tiny apartments are still equipped with a sauna, but something has to give when the bathroom and sauna occupy an inordinate share of the total space, and there is hardly any storage or wardrobe space anywhere.
      An entire apartment building may consist of flats in which the average gross floor-area is no more than 50 square metres.
      The voiced concerns apply to new residential blocks as well as to alterations of existing buildings.
      A year ago an application was filed to transform an old office building in the Pitäjänmäki district into a residential complex consisting of 74 flats. Now the developer is in the process of applying for an amendment to be able to cram no fewer than 104 flats into the same space.
     
The problem is the same with rental apartment buildings as well. For example in a planned tenement for young people in the Malmi district there are only two shared saunas in the building instead of the stipulated four.
      Simultaneously the building’s planned drying rooms have been shrunk.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  New dwellings selling just as well as a year ago (17.6.2009)

Helsingin Sanomat