Tenant Committee

Otaniemi Hoas buildings have a tenant committee, that represents the tenants of Otaniemi Hoas apartments. This committee is called OtaHoas. OtaHoas is perhaps the largest Hoas tenant committee, as most of the others consists only of a single or few buildings. The webpages of other tenant committees can be found from Hoas’s pages under each building.

Tenant committee can NOT affect distribution of apartments. Everything directly related to apartments (such as distributing keys, amount and collection of rent etc.) is directly handled by Hoas. More information about the activities of tenant committee can be found in Hoas webpages under tenant activity.

Tenant committee is chosen annually from tenants in tenant meeting, where every tenant has a vote. The meeting is held usually in January and invitation to it will be delivered to every apartment via regular mail and e-mail.

You can find the current tenant committee in the Contact Page.

Spring of 2020, committee gave away free cleaning equipment for the tenants.

OtaHoas buildings

OtaHoas consists of HOAS buildings for students of Aalto University and their family members. OtaHoas is located in Otaniemi, Espoo. This area is also called Teekkarikylä or Teekkari Village.

The addresses of Hoas buildings in Otaniemi are:

  • Jämeräntaival 9, 10 ja 11
  • Servin Maijan tie 3
  • Servinkuja 5 and 6
  • Miestentie 2 A.

OtaHoas has approximately 1200 tenants. Most of the apartments in Jämeräntaival 10, Servin Maijan tie 3 and Servinkuja 6 are family apartments. Jämeräntaival 11 and Servinkuja 5 consists mostly of shared apartments and studio apartments. Apartments in Miestentie 2 A are mostly studios and family apartments.

Duties of the tenant committee

The tenant committee is responsible for instance of the following:

  • Annual tenant meeting
  • Tenant committee meetings
  • Tenant events: bee, parties etc.
  • Maintaining the clubrooms and loanable items
  • Rules, usage of common spaces

In addition:

  • Using, keeping track of and filing of tenant committee funds
  • Investment requests for obtaining items benefitting tenants
  • Keeping in touch with all tenant committees’ roof organization
  • Budget estimates and presenting them to Hoas
  • Annual inventory of tenant committee’s property
  • Monitoring the level of cleaning and repair needs

Budget and purchases

Hoas supports tenant committee annually with a budget. Tenant committee can choose relatively freely how these allocated funds are spent, with the limitation that certain percentage of it must go to item purchases while the other part must be spent on relaxation (including food for events etc.).

Purchases are usually done in the following form: in the meeting someone suggests purchasing an item, after which the matter is discussed. If decision to make the purchase is made, the one suggesting the purchase is tasked with buying the wanted item and bringing the receipt to tenant committee. After the tenant committee receives the receipt the purchaser will be compensated by Hoas. More detailed information on expenses can be found here.

Meetings

Tenant Committee meetings are events, where committee members discuss the current matters of Otahoas buildings and make decisions about using the allowance. Tenants can contact the committee members to make sure their topic is brought up in a meeting. All tenants are welcome to join the meetings. Sometimes there is even something to snack on 😉

The minutes of Tenant Committee meetings are found in Google Drive (only in Finnish). Older minutes can have things missing from these folders. The official, signed minutes can only be found from Hoas’ archives, where they are delivered by Tenant Committee.

Tenant meeting

New tenant committee is chosen annually in tenant meeting, so there should be at least one meeting per year in each Hoas location. The annual meeting is oraganized by Hoas by sending an invitation to each apartment.

Tenant Committee chosen in Tenant meeting uses its power, entrusted to it by the tenants, to represent the tenants in matters that impact them.

Sometimes it might still be necessary for all tenants to gather together to make decisions. In these events a tenant meeting is organized. Tenant meeting has to be organized, if one tenth of the tenants demands one, or if the tenant committee sees it to be necessary.

History

For the enthusiast there is a lot of material about tenant committee activities in the archives of the committee (in Finnish, mostly). Some of this material is more than decades old.

Hoas itself has publicized a history of its 40 year activities (Puro, Laura (2009): Opiskelijan koti: Hoas 1969–2009. 149 s.) that can be purchased from Hoas offices. Teekkari Village is a vital part of Hoas, as the Jämeräntaival 10 and 11, finished in 1971-72, are the very first Hoas buildings. Hoas main office also used to be located in these buildings.