A little background on Paganism in Iceland: http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16567&ew_0_a_id=238382
Thanks.
In Norway, as far as I know, the old norse beliefs are mostly popular among a tiny "neo nazi" type sect.
About paganism, it is more of a cultural association, some kind of rebels against the church, and I doupt any of them actually beliews in the old gods.
As stated in the article you pointed to, the pagans seem to be getting a prime realestate land in the Öskjuhlíð, wich is a forested hill in the middle of the city.
You can see a picture from the hill and the local landmark Perlan here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlan
I once heard a story about a foreign diplomat from a country with a sisable muslim population, asking when seeing this structure how come the muslims had such influence here, being able to own the obviously most expensive house in the city.
It is not strange question to ask actually, you only would have to add like one or four minarets and voilla, it would be a moska.
About why they don´t just buy a land, I don´t know, we in the pentacostal and free christian churches here do that periodically when we expand or move our operations.
Maybe they want to get a prime realestate from the city council from wich they have applied, but now their operation is run in house in an industrial section of town. I don´t know weather religous groups can ask for a land without payment or something like that, but as I understand it, every time you want to build something in Reykjavík and most other towns and places in Iceland, you have to apply for a land and such from the authorities.
At least if you own a land within the city limits, wich is unlikely as most of it is owned by the city I beliewe, the city counsil still has planning control over it I think.
But I guess it is all about getting a central, and an important location.
I doupt the muslim population here is significant, it jumped a little when we accepted refugees from Kosowo, but I doupt they are more than around 300 to 500 hundred.
It can though matter in a country with only 300 thousand people.
I am a little bit concerned about the other religious group that seems to be getting a land, that is the russian orhtodox church. As I understand it, there are now two orthodox churches here (not having a church though, just a congregation), a russian one, and a serbian one.
I would think it would be more important to ensure that there was one, icelandic orthodox church where both groups would unite into a one church, speaking Icelandic and such, but not a tool by the russians to keep the russian immigrants here russians down the generations.