The Friends of Malmi Airport ry (FoMA) requests the ELY Center to urgently impose a ban on endangering the area of Malmi Airport and the surrounding woods until the EU Commission and the Supreme Administrative Court have taken a stand on the lacking investigations and consideration of the area’s values.
On 24 October 2023, FoMA filed a complaint with the EU Commission about the lax investigations at Helsinki-Malmi Airport and its surroundings related to the nature values under the bird and habitat directives and their being ignored in the area’s general and site planning processes and in the decisions of the ELY center and administrative courts.
On 8 November 2023, FoMA has also filed with the Supreme Administrative Court an application for the decision regarding the area of Malmi Airport in the Helsinki General Plan 2016 to be annulled, based on the neglect of both the inadequately investigated nature values and the RKY cultural heritage values defined by the Finnish Heritage Agency.
The chairman of FoMA, Mr. Håkan Lövdahl, points out that the general legal practice must be followed. “The city must not take actions that pull the rug out from under legal proceedings. Things should be sorted out in the right order.”
Helsinki intends to proceed with its plans regardless of nature values
According to its own information, the City of Helsinki plans to start street construction projects in the woods of the southern part of the Helsinki-Malmi airport area in late 2023, which would weaken and destroy habitats and breeding areas of directive species in a case under investigation by the EU Commission and the Supreme Administrative Court.
Already in the past, the City has destroyed some officially demarcated core area of the flying squirrel to make way for a natural gas main pipe line without a deviation permit required by the Nature Conservation Act. There are still no reports of any kind about several classes of organisms with possible directive species and species under special protection in the area. For example, the City has investigated the breeding and resting places of bats, which are strictly protected by the Habitats Directive, only on the basis of visual observation visits, and their feeding grounds even less. The City’s activities have been clearly tendentious.
A ban on endangerment is necessary
“With the emerging clearer picture of the situation in recent years, the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court may lead to the annulment of the General Plan in the area. In the preparation of the city plans, so many relevant studies and points have been neglected that the matter must be reconsidered,” states Lövdahl. “In the planning process of Östersundom, the Supreme Administrative Court clearly stated that the nature values must be determined carefully before starting work. According to general jurisprudence, this must also apply to the area of Malmi Airport. A ban on endangerment must be imposed immediately until the legal basis of the case has been clarified.”
More information:
Håkan Lövdahl, chairman
Friends of Malmi Airport
tel. +358 0 50 5351428
Application for ban on endangerment (in Finnish): https://www.malmiairport.fi/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/vaarantamiskieltohakemus_2023.pdf