Unspoken Compensations on Cultural Heritage Values?

Since 2013 several projects have been running in Sweden about cultural heritage values and compensation in urban planning. New possibilities have been scrutinized to find out, how compensation measures could also be possible to use not only as an extension of the polluter pays principle but also when a project results in negative impact on cultural heritage. (Grahn Danielson, Rönn & Swedberg, 2015; Rönn & Grahn Danielsson 2017; Rönn 2018) In Finland the legislation doesn’t concern compensation for the lost or threatened cultural heritage values in the built environment, and only a couple cases exists about compensations in natural environment. Usually compensation issues have been handled more from the land owner’s point, for example when the implementation of local plans prevents the accustomed use of the land. In Finland the main means to conserve built cultural heritage is the town plan, which can order to preserve or at least deny demolitions. Planning officers and cultural heritage administrators are struggling on different planning levels with owners and politicians, trying to conserve the cultural heritage values and to adjust new building projects in the environment. To investigate the key issue compensation in the Finnish context this paper discusses about professional practices in town planning concerning built cultural heritage in three example cases 1) Vaasa (plan alteration and building permit), 2) Seinäjoki (town plan, architectural competition and renovation project) and 3) Lapua (finding and keeping cultural values, re-use of an old factory area). The paper aims to illustrate, how practitioners are using different methods for balancing interests between exploitation and preservation in areas with cultural heritage values. Keywords: planning, cultural heritage, preservation, re-use, compensationPeer reviewe