(1)Reasons for Proposal

Although the current Act requires that any person be granted permission to engage in an activity or report in the case of construction, such as reconstruction, extension, or renovation, for the safety and comfortable residential environment of the people living in multi-family housing complexes, complaints about complicated regulations, time and economic costs, and inconvenient procedures continue, and there are problems involving the inability to accommodate the demands of individual complexes or changes in the external environment in a timely manner, such as securing parking lots and installing new necessary facilities. Therefore, considering the scope of the construction and its impact on safety, the residential environment, etc., this amendment aims to eliminate occupant inconvenience in the process of permitting people to engage in or report the activities of multi-family housing and enable them to respond to various internal and external demands for multi-family housing, such as mitigating the requirements for the consent of occupants, etc., which is a prior procedure for permission to engage in or report activities, and expanding the scope of the change of use; rationalizing unnecessary regulations, such as integrating the provision on removing non-load-bearing walls into the provisions on demolition or removal activities of facilities; and clarifying unclear or polysemantic provisions. Also, it aims to improve and supplement some of the shortcomings that have emerged from the operation of the system for permission to engage in or report an activity in multi-family housing.

(2) Major Provisions

A. Mitigate consent requirements for each construction activity when granting permission to engage in or report an activity

1) In the case of changing the use of facilities (landscape facilities, rest facilities, etc.) to essential facilities to secure essential facilities (communal facilities such as a daycare center and a senior community center), mitigate requirements for consent from two-thirds of all occupants, etc. to one-half of them (attached Table 3, subparagraph 1 revised).

2) Among general renovations (demolishing/enlarging/changing columns, beams, load-bearing walls, etc.), for the consent requirements for the “installation of piping equipment on load-bearing walls,” which has a relatively small impact on safety and the residential environment: in the case of multi-unit housing, mitigate from more than two-thirds of occupants in the relevant building to more than one-half of occupants, etc., in the relevant building, and in the case of auxiliary and welfare facilities jointly owned by occupants, mitigate from more than two-thirds of all occupants to more than one-half of all occupants, etc. (attached Table 3, subparagraph 2 revised).

3) Since the demolition, removal, and enlargement of structures/equipment other than important structure construction (load-bearing walls, columns, beams, roof trusses, main stairs, etc.) are frequent small-scale construction jobs that have less impact on safety and the residential environment than renovation, mitigate requirements for consent as follows (attached Table 3, subparagraph 5 revised):

4) Distinguishing general demolition/removal, such as removing structures and equipment for the “prevention of danger or injury” from removing all buildings, depending on the scope of the construction, and impact on property rights, adjust from initial consent of more than one-half of occupants, etc., residing in the building to consent of more than two-thirds of the occupants in the building where one or more buildings of multi-family housing are removed, and adjust from consent of more than two-thirds of all occupants to consent of more than one-half of all occupants, etc., where structures/equipment of an auxiliary facility and a welfare facility jointly owned by occupants are removed (attached Table 3, subparagraph 3 revised).

5) In the case of minor extension or enlargement in the range of 10% of the area and scale that has been inspected for the use of a certain auxiliary and welfare facility, it was required to report with the consent of the residents’ representative council. However, since this is often accompanied by demolition or removal in the case of extension or enlargement, this amendment aims to improve the convenience of residents by amending it so that minor demolition and removal may also be reported with only the consent of the residents’ representative council (attached Table 3, subparagraph 3 (b) “Reporting standards” Section 2 newly inserted).

B. Mitigate regulations on changes of use of auxiliary facilities and welfare facilities jointly owned by occupants

1) Requests to improve the system are continuously being made due to the lack of parking space inside existing multi-family housing complexes as the number of vehicles has increased rapidly (from 8.47 million units in 1995 to 23.4 million units in 2019, an increase of about 276 percent) due to the improvement of income level, etc. Thus, this amendment aims to address the problem of a lack of parking spaces in multi-family complexes by expanding the exception, which allowed changing the use of parking spaces within one-half of each area of sports facilities for residents, landscape facilities, roads in a complex, and children's playgrounds of the existing multi-family housing that was granted the approval of the project plan before June 8, 1996, to the multi-family housing prior to December 17, 2013; provided that in the case of landscape facilities, the installation standards have been deleted (Oct. 27, 2014) from the Regulations on Housing Construction Standards, etc., and thus this amendment deletes the case because it is possible to change the use to parking lots by a report with the eased consent requirements, etc. (attached Table 3, subparagraph 1 (c) “Permission standards” revised).

2) Allow timely installation of facilities required for individual multi-family housing complexes in accordance with changes in internal and external conditions, by granting permission to change the use of all essential facilities by building committee deliberation when changing the use of essential facilities among communal facilities to other facilities (attached Table 3, subparagraph 1 (c) “Report standards” revised).

C. Improve standards for permission to engage in or report activities for welfare facilities (shopping malls, kindergartens, etc.) that are not jointly owned by occupants (attached Table 3, subparagraphs 2, 3, and 5 revised)

1) The current Enforcement also restricts various activities such as the demolition, removal, rebuilding, reconstruction, and renovation of welfare facilities that are not jointly owned by occupants to create a comfortable and favorable residential environment, but the Building Act does not specifically stipulate with respect to rebuilding, reconstruction, and renovation. Also, in the case of demolition, removal, and enlargement, this amendment excludes them from being subject to the permission to engage in an activity because they do not significantly affect the safety of occupants and the residential environment and rationalizes regulations to comply with the related statutes such as the Building Act. However, this amendment aims to improve the change of use, rescission of use, and extension, which are required for special management because the residential environment is likely to be worse than the initially approved project plan, in a way that keeps the current content.

D. Clarify polysemantic provisions, integrate overlapping provisions, etc.

1) Since there are cases where the meaning of “the prevention, etc., of danger or injury,” which is the standard for demolition, removal, and rescission of use, is extended to reasons other than the prevention of danger or injury, this amendment aims to clarify it as “the prevention, etc., of danger or injury” (attached Table 3, subparagraphs 3 and 4 revised).

2) Since there is controversy over whether a building is included in the “structure” specified in the standards for demolition, removal, and enlargement, this amendment defines a “structure,” based on authoritative interpretation, as a component that is not an important structure of a building and a structure that is not a building installed inside or outside the building (attached Table 3 “Remarks” Section “D)” newly inserted).

3) The removal of non-load-bearing walls is included in the concept of “structures,” which is newly established in this revision, and it is integrated into the demolition/removal because its nature is removal (attached Table 3, subparagraph 5 deleted).

4) Since there may be controversy as to whether the provisions related to the “dismantling” of buildings under Article 2, Subparagraph 7 and Article 30 of the Building Management Act also apply to multi-family housing upon the enforcement of the same Act (May 1, 2020), this amendment requires that the head of a Si/Gun/Gu confirms whether all regulations related to dismantling, such as Article 30 of the same Act, have been followed if a construction activity in accordance with attached Table 3, such as the demolition or removal of multi-family housing, falls under the “dismantling” of Article 2, Subparagraph 7 of the Building Management Act (attached Table 3 “Remarks” Section “E)” newly inserted).

5) Aim to improve readability and predictability by classifying/specifying individual provisions of extension/enlargement and demolition/removal, which are prescribed complicatedly, by construction target (multi-family housing and auxiliary/welfare facilities) and construction location (areas for exclusive use, common use, etc.) (attached Table 3, subparagraphs 3 and 5 revised).