Apartment Reconstruction in Private Residential Area to be Easier

Reconstruction projects, demolishing old private houses and building new ones, will be much easier.

The Ministry of Construction and Transportation announced May 31 that it has laid down a guiding principle for reconstruction projects on private residential areas in its “improvement law of the city and the residential environment,” and it will implement it starting from June 1.

The Ministry of Construction and Transportation made rules under which it was possible to reconstruct apartments in the private residential area last July, but one reconstruction case wasn’t conducted due to the lack of clear detailed provisions.

According to the existing provisions, reconstruction projects are allowed if these three conditions are met: the gross area for the reconstruction site is above 10,000 square meters (3,030 pyeong), the road rate is above 20 percent, and old and poor buildings are above two-thirds of the whole buildings.

It is stipulated in this newly-made provision that the area of commercial quarters or tenement houses inside the reconstruction site as well as attached lands of private houses be included in calculating the 10,000 square meters. Also, the area of roads, which will be constructed as a result of the reconstruction process, and the adjacent roads, as well as the existing roads will be included in the “20 percent of road rate” calculation.

The standard of “old and poor buildings” can be judged according to the lapse years from the regulations made by cities and provincial authorities without special security checks. Stores and tenement houses, as well as private houses, are included when counting old and poor buildings.

“Since multi-unit complexes and townhouses have been built in private residential areas so far, parking troubles and other difficulties have been serious,” said Han Chang-seob, chief of the Residential Environment Division at the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, and added, “New regulations are improving the residential environment by building planned apartments in private residential areas.”

Kwang-Hyun Kim kkh@donga.com