정비사업 시행자 제도의 다원화에 관한 법제적 연구 ― 부동산투자회사의 사업시행자 편입 가능성에 관한 규범적 검토 ― = A Legal Study on the Diversification of the Implementer System in Urban Improvement Projects ― A Normative Review on the Possibility of Including Real Estate Investment Trusts as Statutory Implementers ―

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Act on the Maintenance and Improvement of Urban Areas and Residential Environments (hereinafter the “Urban Improvement Act”) adopts a closed-list statutory structure for project implementers and positions the landowners’ cooperative as the principal implementer of redevelopment and reconstruction projects (Article 25). This cooperative-centered structure is premised upon democratic legitimacy—defined in this study as a procedural structure in which landowners participate directly in decisions affecting their own property rights and in which those rights may be disposed of only through the satisfaction of statutory consent requirements.
Meanwhile, the Special Act on the Maintenance and Support of Aged Planned Cities (effective April 27, 2024) and the Act on the Support of Urban Complex Development (effective February 7, 2025) have statutorily designated Real Estate Investment Trusts (hereinafter “REITs”) as one category of project implementer, and the revised Real Estate Investment Company Act (effective November 28, 2025) has newly introduced the Project REITs scheme. Against the backdrop of these legislative developments, this study conducts a normative review of whether REITs may be introduced as implementers under the general Urban Improvement Act.
The argument proceeds in five sequential stages. First, because the Act adopts a closed-list principle, REITs cannot qualify as implementers through interpretation alone; statutory amendment is required. Second, the REITs provisions in the two special acts constitute a partial legislative response to a structural lacuna in the general Act, yet no application records have accumulated.
Third, this absence of records renders a single legislative formula difficult to generalize and raises the necessity of differentiated assessment by project type. Fourth, the normative character of each type—redevelopment, reconstruction, and residential environment improvement—generates differing suitability assessments, and the exercise of expropriation power by a for-profit REITs is constitutionally permissible only under the conditions of public necessity, the retention of final decision-making authority by public agencies, and institutional safeguards against the impairment of public interest by private profit-seeking (Constitutional Court, 2007Hun-Ba114; 2011Hun-Ba129·172). Fifth, the analysis normatively requires phased legislative reform predicated on the evaluation of the special acts’ outcomes, type-specific suitability review, and the guarantee of landowners’ selection rights and fair distribution of development gains.
This study understands the cooperative model not as a defective system but as an institution grounded in democratic legitimacy, and positions REITs as a parallel option rather than a substitute. Its significance lies in constructing a normative framework for judgment—integrating the constitutional dimension of public-power exercise by a for-profit entity—regarding whether and how REITs should be introduced as implementers.