EKYL Celebrated its 20th Anniversary with Annual Housing Forum for Apartment Associations
07.10.2016More than 400 managers of apartment associations, local government officials and leaders from private sector gathered to Tallinn on October 4, where the XIX Housing Forum for Apartment Associations took place. The Forum is a traditional conference organised by EKYL, which raises the most relevant questions about housing and apartment associations in Estonia in its presentations and discussions. This year the Forum had a title “20 years of apartment associations’ movement – apartment association as an engine for housing development” and the event marked the highlight of the 20th anniversary year of EKYL.
The high-level conference offered a wide range of key-note speakers:
- Minister of Entrepreneurship, Liisa Oviir, underlined in her speech that the vision for Estonia is to solve the problems with housing for 2030 with programs targeted to achieving energy efficiency and sustainable environment
- Minister of Justice, Urmas Reinsalu, highlighted the importance of preparation for January 2018, when a new Act of Law regulating apartment associations will come into force in Estonia. According to the new Act, an apartment association will become the only mandatory legal form for managing apartment buildings and blocks of flats in Estonia and this means a major restructuring of the housing system in the country
- Professor Karl Õiger from the Tallinn University of Technology warned of the dangers that Estonia face today as large part of the housing stock is still in a dangerous condition and needs urgent reconstruction
- Chairman of the Board of EKYL, Andres Jaadla, reflected in his speech the organizations’ history and confirmed that the apartment associations movement is today stronger than ever before in Estonia thanks to our competent and innovative leaders of apartment associations.
EKYL awarded a Certificate of Honour to three partners, which have offered remarkable contribution to the development of housing and apartment associations in Estonia:
- The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications
- Fund KredEx
- Tallinn City Government.
According to traditions of EKYL, the Housing Awards for Apartment Associations were also announced in Forum. EKYL organized the competition of apartment associations already twelfth time this year. The grand prizes went this year to apartment associations in Ilmatsalu (Best Reconstruction Project 2016), Tallinn (Beauty of Living Environment 2016) and Pärnu (Best Manager of Apartment Association 2016).
Interview – Andres Jaadla speaking about the Forum in Tallinn Television