Tampere Update (English)

Prior to the action weekend, we had contacted the city with a letter asking them to give us a vacant lot for common use without any conditions. While being aware that the purpose of participatory planning is to domesticate and channel spontaneous grassroots action into institutional forms, we also had delegates in the participatory city planning process for the traditionally working-class district of Pispala. As could have been expected, this didn't yield any results, and so we took to the streets.

We put out a call to street party for free spaces on action weekend Saturday. The party gathered 250+ people and went through the city centre from east to west, blocking the main street for a moment @ Central Square. After a short break and snack at the square, the party continued towards Pispala and squatted an old wooden house there. The house had been empty since last August, and it is destined to be demolished to make room for flats and office buildings. The first house meeting was held immediately on Saturday evening, followed by a party. Since then we've been fixing shit up, gardening, screening films, organising gigs, eating, sleeping and just spending time together around the fire.

Since the house is private property, pretty much everyone here was expecting an almost immediate eviction. That didn't happen, but after a week a representative of the owner came to the house with some cops and told that they want to negotiate about when we should leave. A letter they left us said that they are "concerned" the house might suffer damages in our hands. They also said having inspected the house weekly during the winter to prevent damages. All this is utter bullshit. We found the house cold, doors open and windows broken, without any locks, just waiting for someone to smash it up or burn it down. In the letter the owner also suddenly told that the house has been rented "as a storage", even though it had not been available some weeks earlier when a third party had asked it for rent. This is of course just another trick to get us out.

This all situates within the broader issue of city planning and gentrification in Pispala. The landlord is a major real estate owner and is pushing a new city plan which would allow large scale capitalist housing development in the district. The squatted house has been proposed to be conservated, and it is in the interest of the owner to let the condition of the house to get beyond repairable, so as to allow him to build more to make more money.

The struggle for preserving the original commonal atmosphere in Pispala was initiated already in the 70's, and there's still a lot of local grassroots support for spontaneous initiative. Last week a local civil activist arranged us a meeting with the City vice mayor in community relations, and due to both the planning controversy and the ultimatum issued by the owner, we accepted the offer. The meeting gave us a chance also to present our situation to other activist residents. The vice mayor was sympathetic to our issues and promised to negotiate immediately with the chief planning official, forwarding him our message with her recommendations. Appealing to the authority of the City is of course quite a big compromise, but at this situation we find it acceptable for practical reasons.

There was a meeting with owner on April 30th. Squatters offered to pay rent for the house until the planning controversy is solved, but owner ordered us to leave before monday May 5th. Of course we are not going anywhere. If there's going to be an eviction, it's clear that we will go back to the streets and take new action.

Generally it looks quite good here. Squats in Helsinki and Turku are still up and running, and movements are in a clear upsurge everywhere!