Finland Times

 

Building construction works. File Photo Lehtikuva.

Business Oulu is organizing a housing fair next year in Jällivaara (Gällivare), northern Sweden, reported Finnish language daily Helsingin Sanomat.  

 

Under the project, Business Oulu will start developing 12 plots owned by LKAB mining company in summer.

The project area is about one kilometre from Jällivaara ski resort. The mining company has already purchased the land, which it will sell to developers for about 30,000 euros a plot.

 

Iron ore has been mined from the mountains in Jällivaara for decades. It now faces a huge shortage of housing facilities, as mining activities are expanding into Malmberget’s old residential area, parts of which will be dismantled in the process.

 

“LKAB wants to bring good-quality and energy-efficient construction to northern Sweden. Housing fairs are an excellent place for exhibiting Finnish housing developers and a variety of energy solutions,” says Jukka Olli, an expert at Business Oulu.

Olli is also the manager of the newly-opened Jällivaara branch of Suomi-talo (Finnish House). The previous Suomi-talo was opened in Tromso one year ago. Suomi-talo promotes Finnish labour and companies located abroad.

New homes and apartment buildings are typically built quickly in Swedish mining areas. Now, the Swedish want to learn from Oulu’s Hiukkavaara, northern Finland’s largest new suburb of 20,000 people. There, for the first time in Finland, an urban winter strategy was prepared, including energy-efficiency and intelligent housing solutions.

The planning of Hiukkavaara’s district heating network has taken into account the use of geothermal heating and the construction of zero-energy homes. According to Olli, “The same developers who are building homes in Hiukkavaara are pursuing those Jällivaara plots.”

 

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