Inari’s council approved both plans on 24 September. Välimaa gets 22 house plots and two row-house plots for residents, Viskitie gets holiday homes.
The Inari municipal council approved two detailed plans for the area south of Saariselkä’s centre on Thursday 24 September, Lapin Kansa reported the next day. According to the paper, the plans add more than 80 new plots to Saariselkä. The two areas answer different needs: Välimaa is for people who live in Saariselkä all year, Viskitie for holiday homes and tourism.
Välimaa: houses for year-round residents
Välimaa is about one and a half kilometres from the centre, and the boundary of Urho Kekkonen National Park runs close to its eastern side. The plan creates 22 plots for detached houses and two for row houses. Depending on its size, a house plot allows 200 to 350 square metres of floor area, and besides the house it may have a garage, a yard sauna and a woodshed.
According to the municipality’s plan description, Saariselkä has had no plots for new homes on offer, and plots for permanent housing should make it easier for the resort to keep staff all year. The two row-house plots were added midway through the process, when demand for them grew.
The lit Kuutamolatu trail along the northern and eastern edge of the area stays. In its statement, the nature society Inarin Luonnonystävät asked for the 12 plots closest to the national park to be removed and for smaller building rights. The municipality kept the plots: removing them, it answered, would make building the streets and utilities considerably more expensive and push up the price of the plots sold.
The society also asked that the plots never be used for tourist accommodation such as Airbnb rentals. The municipality replied that the plan designates the plots for permanent housing, but that renting out buildings is not something a detailed plan can decide.
The Viskitie area lies about 2.5 kilometres south of the centre, between Vanhaselkä and Laanila, and reaches highway 4 at its southern end. The plan was drawn up at the proposal of Metsähallitus, the state enterprise that manages Finland’s state-owned land. It replaces the 1974 shoreline plan for Laanila, under which 23 building sites have been built.
The new plan sets out blocks for holiday homes and for tourism services. Along Viskitie itself, a site may have at most two holiday homes and a garage, and the older cabins can stay. The whole area covers 84 hectares with 19,440 square metres of floor area in total, and most of the land is set aside as local recreation area.
According to the municipality, Saariselkä’s plan area has been short of free plots for holiday homes, and demand for plots has been brisk in recent years.
The land-use agreements for the two areas are tied together. If both plans go ahead, Metsähallitus hands all the Välimaa plots over to the Municipality of Inari in return for the planning costs and the land-use and development fees of both areas. According to the municipal board, this gives every plot in the new housing area the same terms and prices.
Neither plan is in force yet. The council’s decision can be appealed to the administrative court, and a plan takes effect only once the municipality has announced it. Välimaa still has no water, sewer or power lines; they are built as the plan is carried out. Both plan descriptions also note that more traffic on Viskitie means the road has to be repaired.
Prices and an application round for the Välimaa plots have not been published yet. Plot sales and leases are handled by the technical department of the Municipality of Inari.
For Saariselkä as it is today, where to stay and what to do in each season, see our Saariselkä guide and the LaplandVibes accommodation hub .