civil aviation were to be transferred to a substitute airfield. The Border Guard moved away in 2016, but , no substituting airfield for civil aviation has been opened. In late 2014, the Finnish state-owned airport operator Finavia Ltd sold the state's properties on Malmi Airport to the city of Helsinki. The ownership was transferred to the city on 1 January 2017. On 31 December 2016, Finavia withdrew its services from Malmi Airport. The city leased the airport to the Malmi Airfield Association, with a three-year lease agreement covering about 39 hectares (30%) of the airport's area. The association operated the airport's aviation activities. The city terminated the airport's lease agreement for aviation purposes in December 2019. The lessee challenged the decision in court, but lost its case in District Court of Helsinki in December 2020. The lessee appealed the decision to the Helsinki Court of Appeal, and the case is still pending. The land of the former airport has been zoned for housing, but the Malmi Airfield Association is also challenging that in court. The Association is the appellee or appellant of numerous court cases concerning the future of the airport. The city closed the remaining runway on 14 March 2021, interrupting its aviation operations. Opposition The closure of the airport attracted vocal opposition from the citizenry. The citizens' law initiative "Lex Malmi", supported by more than 56,000 Finns in just two months' time and calling for keeping Malmi Airport in aviation use by means of legislation, was presented to the Finnish Parliament on 8 February 2017. The aim of the initiative was to secure the future accessibility of Helsinki and Finland by air and to save the internationally acclaimed cultural heritage site. In the end, the Speakers of Parliament prevented it from being voted on, and it was dismissed with a proclamation by the Parliament placing responsibility of proper compensatory measures for the continuation of general aviation on the State of Finland. Alternative airport In June 2005, the Ministry of Transport and Communications ordered the Civil Aviation Administration to formulate a new assessment of the alternatives and costs for a new general aviation airport near Helsinki. In February 2008, the Ministry of Transport and Communications commissioned an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the alternative sites. In preparing the EIA, it turned out to be problematic that neither the Ministry nor any other party had a concrete project to build