The government is pushing a plan to impose management duties on owners of "vacant homes" and levy enforcement fines if they fail to take safety measures. Instead, if they voluntarily demolish vacant homes, it will ease the burden of local government tax.
To activate redevelopment projects for vacant buildings, it plans to designate a vacant building maintenance promotion area (tentative name) and provide incentives such as easing floor area ratio and building-to-land ratio in the area.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on the 2nd announced a plan to revitalize vacant building maintenance at an economic ministers' meeting held at the Government Complex Seoul in Jongno District, Seoul.
According to the ministry, as of last year, there were 134,000 vacant homes nationwide, and up to 61,000 vacant buildings excluding dwellings. The ministry explained, "Vacant buildings cause regional decline, such as the hollowing out of surrounding areas, and there is concern that an increase in vacant buildings in depopulating areas will accelerate the extinction of the provinces, so a preemptive response is needed."
However, the management system is inadequate, with regulations related to vacant buildings scattered across many laws. Vacant buildings are mainly scattered in declining areas, making voluntary maintenance difficult.
To resolve these issues, the ministry will first build a foundation for prevention and management. It will introduce within the year a bill to enact a special act on vacant building maintenance, focusing on establishing an institutional foundation such as expanding management targets and conducting fact-finding surveys.
Vacant buildings that are difficult to repurpose due to aging or neglect will be actively demolished through individual maintenance or linkage with development projects. Owners of vacant buildings will be obligated to take safety measures and demolish, and the burden of neglect will be increased by imposing enforcement fines and reviewing the introduction of economic sanctions. However, after demolition, it will ease the burden of local government tax to encourage voluntary demolition by owners.
An official at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety said, "We have been pushing incentive measures such as easing the tax burden for voluntary demolition of vacant homes since last year. After looking at the situation following the application of the incentive measures, we will also review economic sanctions."
To strengthen local governments' capacity to carry out demolition by authority, when there is concern about safety accidents such as collapse or disasters, it will make demolition orders by local governments mandatory, and if the owner fails to fulfill the demolition obligation, it will prepare a legal basis for the local government to demolish by authority and then claim the right of recourse against the owner for the expense.
In addition, when purchasing and demolishing vacant buildings outside the project area during the progress of a development project and contributing them to the government, it plans to grant special cases for floor area ratio and green space securing to induce vacant buildings to be maintained together in the course of private development projects.
To enhance the utilization value of idle assets in highly usable vacant buildings, it will expand and reorganize the "Empty House AE(愛)" platform, which currently provides the status of vacant homes and maintenance performance, to support listings of vacant buildings and transaction and consultation. It will introduce a "vacant building management business" (responsibility type and consignment type), which supports the management, operation, and sale of vacant buildings on behalf of owners, as a new real estate service sector.
Using the housing & urban fund (urban account), it will establish a "vacant building hub" (SPC), and through the hub, it will purchase or expropriate construction-suspended buildings and unit-level old and substandard buildings that have been completed for 20 years, and then pursue private sales and public development.
To strengthen linkage with redevelopment projects, it will add area-level projects such as urban redevelopment, urban development, and public housing projects to the types of vacant building maintenance projects, reorganize the densely vacant home zones under the Small-Scale Maintenance Act into the tentative vacant building maintenance promotion areas, and provide incentives such as easing floor area ratio and building-to-land ratio to support the smooth promotion of maintenance projects.
While maintaining the characteristics of existing vacant buildings, it will newly introduce a "city-filling facility" system that can be used without use restrictions (such as lodging and commercial), and will also activate the designation of three-dimensional complex zones for vacant buildings to support their multifaceted use.
An official at the ministry explained, "Related industries, especially startups, are very interested in business models such as shared offices and shared lodging facilities that utilize vacant homes."
First Vice Minister Lee Sang-kyung of the ministry said, "An evil cycle is occurring in which residential environments deteriorate and the extinction of the provinces accelerates due to the neglect of vacant buildings," adding, "The government will preemptively maintain dangerous vacant buildings with concerns about collapse or disasters, while not sparing support so that vacant buildings can also be used as resources that boost the vitality of regions."