The Seoul metropolitan government has designated and operated approximately 310 areas of district unit plans. As these plans should be generally renewed every 5 years for their validity under Article 34 of the national land use act, many of them have ...
The Seoul metropolitan government has designated and operated approximately 310 areas of district unit plans. As these plans should be generally renewed every 5 years for their validity under Article 34 of the national land use act, many of them have been renewed and more will be renewed according to future changes in policy and institutional environment. Therefore, for more efficient renewing in the future, this study sought to look back on the renewing process of district unit plans for any problem or issue therein.
In Chapter 1, the background and purpose of this study were explained and research scope and method were defined. In Chapter 2, the criteria and procedures of district unit plans and its renewing process were examined along with the current status of district unit plan renewing of the Seoul metropolitan government. In Chapter 3, 8 districts were analyzed, which have completed the renewing among the district unit plan areas in Jongro-gu, for their current status and features. And the Buam-dong district unit plan was selected as an appropriate subject of this present research analysis. In Chapter 4, the Buam-dong district unit plan was comprehensively investigated such as pre-/post-renewing changes, cases of building permissions, alternatives other than renewing, achievement of renewing purposes, etc. to find out problems and reached conclusion as follows:
First, in the current status of district unit plan renewing of Seoul metropolitan government, among the 86 areas due for renewing, 51 did not receive the renewing. They could face controversies as a failure to implement a legal procedure since the national land use act set forth the renewing should be performed every 5 years for plan validity, excluding those among the 51 which have decided to keep the previous plan as it is through some due internal processes.
In this situation, the law provision regulating the renewing to come every 5 years will need to be amended in consideration of such many districts failing to perform it for more realistic reasons such as the lack of budget.
Second, the Buam-dong district unit plan was renewed for the whole part of the previously determined plan but plan factor changes were only limited to a few areas such as residential lot, building use, landscaping in a site, minor issues and issues on special planned zones. This finding indicates the need to area-specific renewing method rather than the full-scale renewing.
Third, the renewing criteria of Seoul metropolitan government’s district unit plan separates the renewing methods into a full-scale renewing and specific renewing (plan factor-specific and area-specific) for efficient renewing. However, it has no detailed guidelines for selecting which method. It seems that for this reason, most renewings go in full scale. As found in this research, still multiple number of districts such as the Buam-dong plan, will need only specific renewing method. In this consideration, more detailed guidelines for renewing methods need to be in place for further efficiency in the renewing process.