With housing emerging as the country's most pressing livelihood issue, lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition parties are racing to introduce related legislation. A string of bills supporting redevelopment and the rebuilding of aging apartment complexes has come from the Democratic Party of Korea, which lost the June 3 Seoul mayoral election. Observers say Democratic lawmakers representing Seoul districts are trying to shift perceptions of the party as incompetent on housing, with the next general election less than two years away. The People Power Party, for its part, is pushing measures to accelerate private redevelopment projects and improve their profitability.
Rep. Kim Nam-keun, committee liaison for the Democratic Party's Seoul chapter special committee on housing supply policy and chairman of the party's special committee on housing welfare, introduced an amendment to the Act on the Improvement of Urban Areas and Residential Environments last month that would ease consent requirements for redevelopment projects, according to the National Assembly on the 5th. The amendment would lower the threshold for establishing a redevelopment association from three-quarters, or 75%, of landowners and other property owners to 70%. "The 70% range in redevelopment is called the 'last steep slope' because securing that consent rate is so difficult," an official in the redevelopment industry said. "Lowering the threshold would speed up projects in their early stages."
This is not the first such bill to come before the National Assembly. In December last year, Rep. Chun Joon-ho of the Democratic Party and Rep. Eom Tae-young of the People Power Party each introduced amendments to the same act that would lower the consent rate for redevelopment associations to 70%.
Those bills were referred from the full Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee to a legislative subcommittee, but substantive review has stalled for months, and Kim appears to have introduced his bill to press the issue. A member of the committee representing Seoul's Seongbuk-B district, Kim has taken the lead on housing issues within the Democratic Party while criticizing Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon's fast-track redevelopment program.
Rep. Hwang Hee of the Democratic Party, also a member of the committee and representing Seoul's Yangcheon-A district, introduced an amendment to the same act last month that would treat redevelopment approvals as granted if authorities fail to act within the legal deadline. Under current law, heads of local governments must notify applicants whether management disposal plans and project implementation plans are approved within 60 days of receiving the application. But there is no penalty for missing the deadline, and project timelines are routinely delayed as a result, prompting the bill.
The People Power Party, which has emphasized housing supply through private redevelopment and rebuilding, has also been producing bills steadily. Unlike the Democratic measures, theirs focus on securing project profitability. Rep. Kim Jung-jae of the People Power Party introduced a package of three bills on revitalizing downtown housing supply in August.
The package includes an amendment to the Act on the Improvement of Urban Areas and Residential Environments that would raise floor area ratios for private redevelopment projects and ease the burden of supplying rental housing; an amendment to the Act on Urban Parks and Green Areas that would allow developers to pay a fee instead of setting aside parks and green space where surrounding areas already have enough; and another amendment to the urban improvement act that would temporarily relax, for three years, restrictions on transferring association membership in areas designated as overheated speculation zones.
Rep. Choi Soo-jin of the People Power Party, who chairs the party's district committee for Seoul's Jung-gu and Seongdong-B, introduced an amendment to the Act on the Improvement of Urban Areas and Residential Environments in August that would expand the share of public contributions that can be paid in cash. Under the public contribution system, developers that receive benefits such as higher floor area ratios build public facilities and hand them over to local governments free of charge. Critics have pointed to disputes over ownership and maintenance responsibility after associations disband, as well as the oversupply of unnecessary facilities.
Choi's bill would, as an exception, allow facilities to be built in areas with poor infrastructure elsewhere within the same administrative district when infrastructure inside the project zone is deemed sufficient. The share of public contributions that can be replaced with cash payments is also expected to expand.
"The government and the ruling party seem to have a more open view of private redevelopment than in the past, but they still prefer public-led supply over supply from the private sector," a political source said. "The gap between the parties remains, so won't citizens judge by the results each side delivers?"
