Gemensamhetsanläggningar för VA : Drivkrafter och kostnader ur ett fastighetsägarperspektiv

Sammanfattning: Joint facilities (in Swedish ”Gemensamhetsanläggningar”) is a Swedish form of solution for water and/or wastewater systems where two or more homeowners together can form a mutual arrangement for their water and/or wastewater services. This is made possible by a cadastral procedure (in Swedish called ”förrättning”) from the cadastral authority (Lantmäteriet), where for example the suitability of each participating home of the joint facility is assessed according to Swedish facility law (anläggningslagen). Such arrangements can be a way to increase the speed of taking action for solving problems with poor-functioning on-site wastewater systems. Joint facilities often occur in areas outside the municipal area where previous summer cottages tend to become permanent homes and where, for various reasons, it is not profitable to connect to a public common service water and/or wastewater system. In a previous project, ”VA-guiden”, a company that collects and disseminates knowledge regarding water and/or wastewater issues, worked on finding ways to facilitate the process of forming a joint facility for water and/or wastewater systems. These processes can be complex and often involve many parties, such as homeowners, municipal- and cadastral authorities. This study focuses upon and investigates the driving forces behind and costs there are for Swedish homeowners implied with forming a joint facility for water and/or wastewater systems, together with what needs of knowledge there are for municipal- and cadastral authorities within the same issue. These aspects are previously unstudied to date. The main purpose being to contribute with knowledge that can help facilitate the process of forming joint facilities for water and/or wastewater systems for homeowners, municipal- and cadastral authorities. Hopefully, this can contribute to a faster remedy of poorly functioning on-site wastewater systems and thus also to the sustainable future development of our environment. By interviews with eight homeowners, six officials from municipal authority and four officials from cadastral authority, the answers of the questions of the study were searched for. The most common driving force among homeowners was proved to be the cost aspect; that it can be less expensive to form a joint facility compared to connecting to a common service public water and/or wastewater system. No evident needs of knowledge among municipal- and cadastral authorities were revealed in this study, but several difficulties and impediments within the process could be identified. Something that was highlighted by many was that the time of conducting the cadastral procedure is long. The costs are difficult to comment on, since this can vary much depending on each situation, for example, regarding soil conditions and the amount of homes included in a joint facility. There are a number of different constituent costs, thus making it difficult to make fair comparisons between different cases of joint facilities for water and/or wastewater systems. Future studies could work towards development of a model carefully designed to receive more accurate results regarding cost calculations. Furthermore, there is a need of support and clearer information to homeowners in the process of forming joint facilities for water and/or wastewater systems.