Using any public areas requires a permit from the City. Here you can find information about the permit application when you want to use street or park areas for different purposes, for example.
You can temporarily use public areas such as street and park areas and squares in various ways such as e.g. for worksites, worksite needs, storage, stacking, or different events, sales activities, summer patio placements, banner advertising or corporate advertising.
To use the areas, you will always need a permit from the City, with the exception of street space decorations that comply with the City’s conditions. Permits are applied via Lahti online service (in Finnish).
Terraces and street space decorations
Street space decorations can be placed in front of businesses and housing associations without a permission when it complies with both of the following conditions:
- decorations are placed no further than 60 cm from the facade
- pedestrians will always have at least 1.5 m of free space to walk on.
You can find instructions for terrace planning and permit application as well as street space decoration in the manuals attached.
Fees
To use the areas, you must pay a charge confirmed by the board of technical affairs. If you use areas without permission, you are charged fourfold. See pricelist for the amount of the charge.
In their meeting on 24 March 2020, the board of technical affairs and the board of environment decided that due to the exceptional situation caused by coronavirus, all terrace charges are reduced by 50% until the end of 2021.
Traffic arrangements
If your operations have an effect on traffic, for example on pedestrians, cyclists, road traffic or parking, you must draw up a plan for temporary traffic arrangements and have it approved by the Traffic Unit of the Urban Environment Service Area. You are responsible for implementing the traffic arrangements.
Street space can be reserved for non-profit uses without any permit charges.
Non-profit organisations, associations and other operators can reserve a space from the city centre pedestrian areas to present their operations without any permit charges. For further information, see the attached guide for the free use of street space with a location map.