The Ministry of the Interior has outlined its vision for shelters, which will apply to larger buildings requesting construction permits after next year.

The shelters would have to provide at least 0.75 square meters per person, making up about 2 percent of a building's usable area.

Anyone building a structure with at least 1,200 square meters must include a shelter under the terms of the bill as it stands.

For industrial buildings, the requirement begins at 1,500 square meters, and any publicly accessible building over 10,000 square meters must make the shelter open to the public.

These new regulations will be presented to the Riigikogu in the coming months.

The detailed guidelines for designing and constructing the shelters should be ready by summer, although initial ideas are already on paper. "We based our approach on Finnish requirements," Mari Tikan, an adviser at the Ministry of the Interior, said.

A shelter's durability is the primary concern, with the walls and ceilings required to withstand blasts of up to 100 kilonewtons per square meter; in laypersons' terms this is the equivalent of the force exerted by six to seven cars on one square meter.

The shelter must withstand the collapse of the building and also of nearby detonations, such as an artillery shell blast from five meters away, or a smaller blast 25 meters away.

The proposed shelters would serve multiple purposes daily, such as a storage room or community space, as long as they can be converted for use in 74 hours.

A shelter doesn't have to be underground—it can be on the first floor with structural reinforcement to meet requirements.

The ministry also plans more lenient rules for developers building multiple buildings near each other.

Shared shelters may be permitted within 250 meters of the building entrance under the bill.

Shelters will include necessary facilities such as a utility room with electrical outlets, waste storage, water supply, and a system which maintains ventilation and pressure. "This ensures that if the building collapses, people inside the shelter can still escape," Tikan added.

The proposed spaces would be gradually built, and owners of existing buildings must also consider adding shelters.

Tikan put the figure at buildings in Estonia which will need shelter plans at approximately 67,000; if a building cannot provide adequate shelter, alternative locations must be considered.

The draft bill would need to be processed at the Riigikogu and pass a majority vote to enter into law.

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