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45,000 cabins were built in Vestfold and Telemark. Sufficient space has been allocated to accommodate at least an additional 27,000. Is there room for over 72,000 cabins in the county?
The municipalities of Vestfold and Telemark county have passed the use of land for county vacation homes. It is a useful tool for highlighting the status of land policy.
Vengi municipality has the largest number of cabins in the county, which is 5,500. It is a large municipality with an area of 3100 km². The 5,500 cabins make up only 2 percent of the space. At the same time, the number of cabins is 1.5 times the number of cabins in the municipality.
Larvik has 4800 cabins. This makes the municipality the second largest cabin municipality in the county, followed by Tinn with 3,470 cabins, Kragerø with 3,421 cabins, Færder with 3,219 cabins and Sandefjord with 2,795 cabins.
In Færder, the density is the largest, with 32 cabins per square kilometre, and 3,219 cabins are distributed over an area of 100 square kilometers in the municipality. Next on the list is Kragerø, with 11.9 cabins per square kilometer, ahead of Bamble and Porsgrunn with 8.5 cabins per square kilometre.
Twenty-two percent of the county’s cabins are located in the beach area, within the so-called 100-meter belt along the coast. In 2020, there were 9,700 cabins in the beach area of Vestfold and Telemark. Since 2010, more than 900 new cabins have been built in the beach area and along the county’s waterways.
According to the Planning and Building Law, the 100-meter belt must take into account the natural and cultural environment, outdoor life, landscape and other public interests.
There are 3,382 cabins in the county’s wild reindeer habitat. 75 percent of these areas fall within areas designated as national reindeer areas.
The survey shows that municipalities in the county have allocated more than 30,000 acres for the construction of a new hut.
This is an area in the zoning plan, sub-municipal plan and/or municipal plan. And while it does not necessarily reflect specific construction projects, it does reflect the municipalities’ desire to reallocate a new area for cabin fields.
With a rough estimate of 1.1 acres per cottage, 30,000 acres make up more than 27,000 vacation homes. 90 percent of the area lies in five municipalities, and today it has a population of 17,000. 27,000 new cabins will be in addition to the 45,000 cabins already built in the county.
Today, Hajarddal has 2432 cabins. The municipality has allocated 10,000 acres for the construction of the cottage in the future. There is enough space for more than 9,000 new cabins. In a municipality with 1,600 permanent residents.
Every municipality must provide basic health services to everyone residing in the municipality. The income that will finance this and other services depends more on the number of permanent residents of the municipality than on the number of cottage owners.
In the past decade, there has been more growth in Norway’s domestic economy than in export-oriented businesses other than oil and gas. This means that we risk pumping the economy through inflation in the buying and selling of homes and real estate, which in turn we finance with larger loans and the sale of fossil energy abroad.
Can it last forever?
Ådne Naper (SV)
Chair of the Main Committee for Climate, Survey and Planning
Vestfold County and Telemark
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