New Regional Plan focuses on themes relating to green transition
The Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council started the process of a thematic green transition land use plan in May 2024. The new plan completes the legally valid Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Land Use Plan with themes including energy, technical service, business, logistics, as well as environment and climate.
– We aim to support the land use planning in municipalities and consequently make the implementation of green transition projects in Helsinki-Uusimaa smoother. In our stakeholder questionnaire, the theme of green transition came up strongly, as our operating environment is also changing rapidly, Ms Ilona Mansikka, Manager of Regional Planning at the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council, says.
Green transition projects often require space and coordination with other forms of land use. Foresight and acknowledgment at a regional level are significant ways to make sure regionally and even nationally important projects have the required prerequisites.
Preliminary themes to be handled in plan
- Energy: solar energy, transfer networks and new energy solutions as small nuclear power reactors and hydrogen.
- Technical services: water supply and resources.
- Business: Industry and production, circular economy and soil management.
- Mobility: logistics and long-distance passenger transportation.
- Natural and environmental resources and attraction: protected areas, ecological networks and forests/carbon sequestration.
- Climate change mitigation and adaptation will be acknowledged, among others, in the impact assessment.
- Additionally, the security of supply and safety is a cross-cutting principle in the land use planning work.
The entity with a legally binding Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Land Use Plan will be completed with entirely new themes and some of the existing themes will be updated. However, all current questions cannot be answered with changes in a regional plan.
–But we can make background reviews, open up the legal interpretation of the current regional plan regarding the theme or support the implementation of a legal plan with, for instance, authority activities or projects, Ms Mansikka clarifies.
Four years of land use work in sight
In May 2024, with a decision by the Regional Board, we started working upon the green transition land use plan. During the starting period, amongst other things, the projections about population and workplaces will be updated. A report will be made upon the land use needs based on green transition and development descriptions regarding various themes.
The content and targets of the plan will be defined more precisely in the participation and assessment scheme. It is to be approved of by the Regional Board and then to be presented officially. This is planned to happen early in 2025. The plan draft will be current in 2025, and the proposal phase will go on until 2026. aiming at the plan to be finally approved of in 2027.
The new green transition land use plan will be made for the entire Helsinki-Uusimaa Region, as a comprehensive plan. With its themes, the plan completes all legally binding land use plans in Helsinki-Uusimaa with a target year of 2050. The presentation will continue as general and strategic as it is in the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Land Use Plan.
For further information, please contact:
Ilona Mansikka
Manager, Regional Planning
ilona.mansikka@uudenmaanliitto.fi
Development of regional land use planning, Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Land Use Plan 2050. Areas of responsibility in regional land use planning: Espoo, Helsinki, Kaunainen, Vantaa. Deputy for Director of Regional Planning Mari Siivola
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