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Only a third of the beach area on the Oslo Fjord is accessible to the public. The government will now have a review of the municipalities’ practices.
The municipality of Oslo has campaigned against illegal construction in the beach area. This photo was taken in May 2020. The photo shows Reidun Bolsø (left), exterior coordinator at the Urban Environment Agency, and Lena Catrine Amdal at the Planning and Construction Agency (right). Photo: Espedal, Jan Tomas
Access to the beach area is getting worse for the 1.6 million people who live along the Oslo Fjord.
To remedy the problem, the Ministry of Climate and Environment has proposed several measures in a recent plan for the Oslo Fjord (see data box).
– The main challenge is that you have a little by little reduction of the beach area. Individual developments and dispensations seem small in themselves, but overall access to the beach area will be poorer, says Minister of Climate and Environmental Protection Sveinung Rotevatn (V).
In the belt that runs 100 meters from the promenade, it is actually forbidden to build. But the municipalities can grant the dispensation. Here there is a big difference between the municipalities. That’s a problem, Rotevatn believes.
– We will give the state administrator the task of monitoring the practice in the municipalities. It is important to know what is the basis of the dispensations that are granted and how it affects access to the beach area.
Provide removal assistance
Many home and cabin owners break the law when they spread their lawns and put up fences, signs, and patio furniture. The municipalities quickly become the weak side, when people settle in the beach area.
The government’s response is to consider providing municipalities with more legal assistance.
– Some municipalities are not sure of the law when it comes to the possibility of eliminating illegal interventions. Another problem for municipalities is to clarify the boundary between the interior and the exterior. Legal assistance is something that several municipalities have asked for, says Rotevatn.
The beach area must be accessible to people, says the Minister of Climate and Environmental Protection, Sveinung Rotevatn (V). This photo was taken last summer in connection with the protection of Lurefjorden and Lindåsosane in western Norway. Photo: Bård Bøe
But legal aid is something the government is only currently considering. Oslo Friluftsråd is not happy about that.
– Legal assistance to municipalities should arrive as soon as possible, is the message from Kjetil Johannessen, who is vice president of the Oslo Outdoor Council.
Legal aid to municipalities makes sense, says Fredrik Holth, who is a law professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, NMBU.
– Actually, it is about reintroducing a scheme that was discontinued a few years ago. To achieve the objective that people have access to the beach area, it is important to monitor with control that there are no illegal barriers in the beach area.
Municipalities don’t always have the necessary legal experience for this, Holth says.
– These are resource-intensive cases and require a full mapping of the actual circumstances and good legal competence. In addition, a large number of cases are usually discussed.
– Learn from each other
It is also proposed to create a network, where municipalities can learn from each other.
It can discipline municipalities’ practice around dispensations, Holth believes.
– Basically, the conditions are very strict, so it is not the regulations that apply when it comes to construction in the beach area.
Rotevatn is not concerned about the network becoming a super tip.
– Individually, the municipalities have significant instruments. So it is wise to sit down and learn from each other. In this way, unnecessary demolition of the beach area can be avoided.
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– Great consequences
– The municipalities are currently responsible for managing the beach area. The government is not tampering with local autonomy, Rotevatn says.
– The municipalities will continue to have autonomy and will decide the territorial plans. But I think that municipalities benefit from talking to each other and, so that things are seen in a broader context. What each municipality does seems small on its own, but in sum it has great consequences.
– Dialogue, knowledge acquisition and evaluations are the basic tone of the measures. Today we are not short of a whip, believes Rotevatn.
– There are already a series of whips that are prohibited from building in the beach area. But then there are rules of exception that we must consider.
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That there is a plan now is important, says Oslo Friluftsråd.
– There is a great need for more accessible and adapted leisure areas around the Oslo Fjord, in a region that grows by 20,000 people a year. Today’s existing recreation areas are heavily used, something we saw in the crown summer of 2020, says Johannessen.
There is a missing measure in the plan for the beach area: more money for the purchase of beach properties.
– This is a good investment in terms of public health.
Having a network with municipalities can be an important contribution, believes Johannessen. But then enough resources must also be provided, he says.
– The networks have existed for several years, but we have experienced that the activity has varied a little.
