Gyeonggi Province Urban Regeneration Regulatory Improvements Show Results

[Suwon Ilbo=Park No-hun Reporter] Following the amendment of the Special Act on Promotion and Support of Urban Regeneration (August 27, 2019), the enforcement ordinance will be amended and implemented on November 28, positioning urban regeneration projects in Gyeonggi Province to gain momentum.

In particular, the amended ordinance introduces a "negative" regulatory approach to minor changes in activation plans—the implementation plans of urban regeneration projects—by enumerating only matters prohibited by law while permitting all other matters, thereby expanding the scope of allowance and simplifying the procedures for changes. This is a matter that Gyeonggi Province has consistently proposed since last year.
Minor matters refer to changes other than increases in total project costs or reductions of 10% or more, establishment or abolition of urban regeneration projects, etc. Administrative procedure simplification involves exempting public hearings, opinions from local legislatures, and committee deliberations for minor changes.

According to the province on the 28th, the government, promoting the Urban Regeneration New Deal project as a state policy initiative, selected 265 locations nationwide through competitive bidding from 2017 to present in 2019, of which 31 locations in 14 cities including Suwon and Goyang in Gyeonggi Province (12%) were selected, with projects of the largest nationwide scale now underway.
The Urban Regeneration New Deal project is an initiative to revitalize aging residential areas and declining downtown districts led by residents, establishing urban regeneration plans through bottom-up approaches via resident participation.
In this process, as diverse opinions from residents are gathered, plan changes inevitably occur frequently, and problems of project delays due to legal and administrative procedures for project plan modifications have been continuously raised.
In response, the province repeatedly proposed to the central government policy improvement items on expanding the scope of minor changes to activation plans and simplifying administrative procedures from last year, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport accepted them.

Prior to this, the province continuously proposed to the government and National Assembly the necessity of exempting urban regeneration projects from local financial investment review by the Ministry of Interior and Safety and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, resulting in the amendment of the Local Financial Investment Project Review Rules (May 17, 2019) to exempt investment review for urban regeneration projects that have gone through deliberation by the Urban Regeneration Special Committee.
Given that conducting investment review generally requires a minimum of five months to a maximum of over two years, the amended provisions are expected to significantly shorten project periods when applied.
Alongside this, the province proposed to the central government exceptional provisions excluding the establishment and modification of shared property management plans to further accelerate urban regeneration projects, as well as regulatory rationalization measures to alleviate cost burdens from undergrounding of electrical facilities in urban regeneration areas. After various efforts including visiting the National Assembly to explain the necessity of legislation, an amended bill was submitted to the National Assembly on October 31 (introduced by Rep. Kim Chul-min).

Lee Geon-yong, Director of the Urban Regeneration Division, stated, "Based on the amended ordinance, we will push forward the Urban Regeneration New Deal project, which is entering its third year, at a fast pace so that residents can feel the benefits," and added, "Beyond financial support, we will collaborate with the central government to actively discover unreasonable regulations and concentrate our resources on providing administrative support by proposing alternatives."