Five small cabins and an extension to the Sjávarhúsið house in the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve will remain standing following a ruling by the Environment and Natural Resources Complaints Committee, Vísir reports. The buildings are located in Aðalvík bay, in the Westfjords nature reserve, on land owned by several different parties. The dispute over the buildings has been long-standing.
One of the landowners in the disagreement, Miðvík ehf., demanded the cabins and extension be removed, claiming they were built without a licence. In 2018, the committee rejected Miðvík’s demand to remove the extension to Sjávarhúsið. Last spring, the Ísafjörður building inspector confirmed that ruling and rejected the demand to remove the cabins on the grounds that they had little impact on the surrounding environment and that other landowners had not made complaints about the extension built onto Sjávarhúsið.
The committee’s ruling stated that the construction did not have any major impacts on the surroundings, visibility, shade, or other factors, and stronger reasoning from Miðvík was needed if they were to be demolished.
