A citizens’ initiative calling on the government to reverse a Helsinki city decision to build housing on the current location of the Malmi Airport was thrown out of the Finnish Parliament on Wednesday.
MPs did not vote on the motion as Mauri Pekkarinen, deputy speaker of the parliament, ruled that the proposal was essentially unconstitutional.
Late last year, the citizens’ initiative ran into a hurdle when Parliament’s Constitutional Law Committee deemed that reversing the decision by Helsinki city authorities would be unconstitutional, because it would fetter municipal sovereignty.
Lex Malmi, as it came to be known, roiled the parliament and the government during last spring’s local government elections and also spawned a grassroots movement to reverse the decision to build housing on the site of the historic airfield.
At the time, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä even said that his administration would be willing to step in to preserve the location for light aviation on certain conditions. The main criterion would be finding a suitable area in the city to construct much-needed housing by way of a land swap.
Appeals point to cultural importance
Critics of the plan to construct homes on the airfield have pointed to its historical significance. Completed in 1938, the terminal building designed by architects Dag Englund and Vera Rosendahl is considered a prime example of functionalist architecture.
In 2016, the state withdrew its support for the light aircraft airport. Once state airports operator Finavia halted operations at the airfield, the Malmi Airfield Association stepped in to maintain the facility, which is an important site for pilot training.
The City of Helsinki has zoned the area for residential development for 25,000 residents. If this scale of housing development were to be implemented, the airfield would not be able to continue in operation.
Other efforts to preserve the airfield included declaring it a site of historical and cultural significance. On 16 March 2016, Europe's leading cultural heritage organisation Europa Nostra selected Malmi Airport as one of the seven most endangered cultural heritage sites in Europe.
Edit on March 24 at 13:56 to state that the deputy speaker of the parliament made the decision, and not the speaker, who was not presiding over the session in question.