Casa Robino

It has been an interesting weekend here in Reykjavík. On Thursday evening a group of young people with anarchistic tendencies squatted a large residential building on Vatnsstígur, dead-center in Reykjavík. (City center that is, not geographical center or population center. For those interested and familiar it’s close to bars Boston and Dillon and around the corner from Hljómalind.)
Squatting is not common in Iceland; the same group squatted a building last autumn (pre-crash) but it only lasted a couple of days, and most squatting is done without much public awareness.
This building has stood empty for over a year. So have most of the buildings around it. Reykjavík’s city center was, over the last year, largely bought up by investors intending to tear old buildings down and
reshape the city center; this particular lot, currently with mixed zoning, was intended to be a shopping mall.
Several things prevented this. One issue was that several buildings on the lot are more than 100 years old, which by Icelandic preservation law means that they’re automatically protected. The protection can be waived
if the building is in poor condition. So the contractors left the buildings stand empty - nature will take its course. It only takes about two years for a building to be ruined in this climate if it isn’t maintained.
Then the crash happened.
I heard an estimate that 9000 apartments in Reykjavík are vacant; I’m not sure how they arrived at that number, but I’ll easily believe that it’s not less than half of that: entire freshly built suburbs are empty, with hundreds of buildings half-completed. (Note that many buildings have many apartments) In the city center, new skyrises have been abandoned half way through construction. This plus the buildings that had been bought and left to rot by the contractors, plus the fact that hundreds of families have been evicted for being unable to pay their mortgages. Many more families have been granted permission to postpone mortgage payments.
So 2000-4000 livable spaces, perhaps. And possibly thousands of homeless people. Unemployment is soaring: roughly 15000 people were unemployed last time I checked. Remember that there’s only 310000 people in this country - the workforce is only 184100 people (2008 estimate, see http://hagstofa.is/?PageID=637&src=/temp/Dialog/varval.asp?ma=VIN01001%26ti=Atvinnu%FE%E1tttaka%2C+atvinnuleysi%2C+vinnut%EDmi+og+fj%F6ldi+starfandi+eftir+%E1rsfj%F3r%F0ungum+2003%2D2008+%26path=../Database/vinnumarkadur/rannsoknir/%26lang=3%26units=Fj%F6ldi/hlutfall
). That means 8% unemployment, which I’ve heard is expected to go to 20%. For a lot of countries this is normal, granted, but for Iceland it’s unprecedented.
So to the squat.
The contractor went bankrupt, so ownership of the buildings went to one of the banks that had previously been nationalized. The state essentially owns the lot.
There’s general elections here after two weeks. I heard from an acquaintance high up in one of the political parties that there’s no political will to throw them out until after the elections - with massive support for left wing parties these days people are generally sympathetic towards the cause, with ALL news reports so far having been astoundingly positive:
* http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2009/04/09/hustokufolk_a_vatnsstig/
(Pictures near the bottom)
One of the key points is that the first thing they did after squatting the house was they started to paint it’s exterior, and fix up the interior, which appeared to have been used as a drug den - i.e., it was really being resquatted.  The fact that it’s being fixed up has been resounded in the media.
The neighbors were all contacted by the squatters and their support received. One even allowed them use of electricity, it seems, by way of an extension cord leading out through a window.
The blogosphere has been similar. Of blogs I found on the subject of the squat, only two were negative. The bloggers in question also commented heavily on other blogs:
* http://geiragustsson.blog.is/blog/geiragustsson/entry/850034/
* http://vest1.blog.is/blog/vest1/entry/849774/
* http://baldvinj.blog.is/blog/baldvinj/entry/849972/
* http://salvor.blog.is/blog/salvor/entry/850776/
(All in Icelandic, but links included for completeness)
So here’s where it gets interesting. Several bloggers, and several people I’ve talked to - people even not typically affiliated with radical movements - have brought into question, in light of this action, the entire notion of property. This is not to say that the idea of property is about to be defenestrated nationwide, but rather that the idea that property is an unalienable right (which is granted by our constitution) is being shaken quite noticably.
A friend of mine, a law student, had never heard of squatting before. She was completely boggled at the entire notion: “What about property rights?” she asked. “Do they weigh heavier than basic human rights, such
as the right to shelter?” I retorted, albeit not quite so eloquently. There were half a dozen people there, the discussion was quite interesting.  The same basic concept is plastered over the front of the building, a huge banner:
“HEIMILIÐ ER HEILAGT / EIGNARÉTTURINN EKKI”
- “The home is sacred / property isn’t”
(Homage to an advertising campaign that’s been going on where all the ads start with “The home is sacred”)
She’s not the only one. One of the offending bloggers wrote: (my translation)
“If I have a car that’s broken down and I don’t want to fix it, so I just let it rust in my yard, do these kids think they have the right to break into it and fix it up and go for a ride? If they think that, I’ll get my shotgun.”
One blogger said:
“The heat was taken off the building to kill the cockroaches.”, which is funny since the only cockroaches in Iceland are at the former US Navy base (now a University campus) - Americans take cockroaches with them
everywhere. He was met with sarcasm.
In light of sudden accidental housing abundance crossed with increasing unemployment and homelessness, are Icelanders about to “go native” with further squatting actions? It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I wish the nascent squatting culture the best of luck.