Under amended law, apartment associations must get basements shelter-ready

The Estonian government has submitted a new Emergency Act bill to the Riigikogu that would require shelters in all new buildings. Existing apartment buildings will be exempt, but apartment associations must ensure their basements are fit to use as shelters if needed.
Under the new Emergency Act agreed on by the government on Thursday, shelters will not have to be built in existing buildings, whether residential, office or commercial.
However, owners must prepare a sheltering plan and, if possible, convert a room into a designated sheltering space.
"When you need to take shelter, there's very little time — there's no time to run outside," said Tuuli Räim, deputy secretary general for rescue and crisis management at the Ministry of the Interior. "And given that airstrikes in Ukraine mostly happen at night, it's especially important that that opportunity exists in those buildings — whether at their home or their workplace."
A sheltering space must have clean, dry air, at least two exits and strong structural enclosures.
According to Estonian Union of Cooperative Housing Associations (EKÜL) board chair Andres Jaadla, apartment associations first have to start with the basics.
"First, basements need to be cleaned up," Jaadla said. "Basements often end up as storage spaces filled with leftover junk — and that often blocks passageways. The next issue we need to map out is the condition of our basements: how many exits there are, and how many sheltering spaces can be created in various types of buildings to begin with, since buildings were built in different years, and their basement layouts and structures vary."
In the future, however, new buildings will be required to include not just a sheltering space, but a proper shelter, with a construction strong enough to protect the people inside it from explosions, shockwaves and air pollution.
New developments are expected to cost about 3 percent more as a result — but possibly much more than that. However, if a building permit for a new building is applied for before the summer of 2028, then a shelter will not be required.
Lauri Männiste, CEO of construction company Arco Tarc, says developers will be dusting off a lot of shelved projects to submit before the shelter requirement deadline.
"So there's going to be a fairly large supply in the coming years," he pointed out. "But once the shelter requirement takes effect, there will definitely be a gap, with significantly fewer projects receiving building permits."
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Editor: Marko Tooming, Aili Vahtla