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The Minister of the Environment wants to demolish ramshackle buildings

Keit Pentus, the Minister of the Environment, submitted a draft for coordination, making it possible to apply for support from the Environmental Investment Centre for the demolishment of deteriorated buildings that contaminate landscapes.

“The target of this project is Estonia with cleaner landscapes. We have plenty of examples in Estonia where abandoned and deteriorating large ramshackle buildings from the Soviet era still contaminate our landscapes in the midst of beautiful scenery. Be it former industrial or military ruins or buildings from the kolkhoz period that are now on the verge of collapse,” explained the Minister. “Now we are creating an opportunity to stop such pollution.”
 
Applicants can apply for support for liquidating agricultural, industrial or military buildings or facilities than have been taken out of use and are deteriorating. Any legal person may apply for support from this measure. If the applicant is not the owner of the facility, the applicant must submit the owner’s consent to the Environmental Investment Centre. The applicant also has to submit an assessment by the corresponding local government on whether it is a building that has been taken out of use and damages the landscape.

An explanatory memorandum of the regulation states that adding a new support measure arises from the practical need to reduce negative risk and impact caused by former contaminated sites or abandoned agricultural, industrial and military buildings to the landscape and to aquatic environments (such as the fallout of hazardous substances into surface and ground water, littering of bodies of water, uncovered shafts of former military objects, buildings in danger of collapse in abandoned agricultural or military sites).

Adding this support measure will also contribute to the implementation of the objective “Ensuring a clean living environment for all residents in Estonia” under the Government of the Republic’s Action Programme for 2011-2015 (activity g: launching a measure in order to liquidate landscape contamination (ramshackle buildings) from the Soviet era).