Just over a month after the government began pilot operation of a "fast-track permitting support center" as one of its measures to expand the supply of dwellings, the supply of more than 2,000 dwellings has resumed.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Architecture & Urban Research Institute (AURI) said on the 18th that, after the fast-track permitting support center began accepting applications on Nov. 26 last year and supported statutory interpretation and contributed acceptance consultations, permitting resumed for two dwelling projects in Uijeongbu and Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, totaling 2,700 households.
Introduced as part of the current administration's policy agenda and the Sept. 7 real estate supply measures, the support center aims to resolve issues such as cost increases due to permitting delays and higher sale prices by reducing confusion in statutory interpretation and mediating differences between local governments and developers.
The Uijeongbu dwelling project faced a six-month delay in project approval due to differing interpretations of the Building Act regarding the scope of fire compartmentation, incurring tens of millions of won in monthly financing costs. City authorities, citing ambiguous statutes and the lack of clear prior rulings, took the position of prioritizing safety and requiring fire compartmentation to apply to the equipment and piping spaces installed in elevator lobbies. The developer, however, interpreted that the law would be met if only the floor penetrations created by pipe installations were firestopped, leading to a wide gap in views.
The support center, together with the department responsible for the law, directly reviewed the drawings and presented an authoritative interpretation finding the developer's view reasonable. As a result, 1.5 billion won in expense was saved, including three months of financing costs and increased project costs for redesign, and permitting resumed immediately.
At the Uiwang redevelopment site, concerns grew over move-in delays as differences widened between the city and the developer regarding additional contributed acceptance. When the contributed acceptance area agreed upon during the establishment of the maintenance plan was reduced at the project implementation approval stage, the city held that the shortfall had to be additionally paid, while the developer disagreed, saying the construction cost itself was injected at the same level. After reviewing relevant statutes and similar cases, the support center interpreted that contributed acceptance is based on area, not construction cost, and that the point in time for calculating scale and value should be the date of project implementation approval. It also directly recalculated the shortfall in contributed acceptance (1.3 billion won) relative to the eased floor area ratio at the site, preventing unnecessary disputes and project delays.
Currently in the National Assembly is a bill to amend the Real Estate Development Project Management Act to establish a legal basis for the center's continuous and stable operation. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) plans to officially launch the center once legislation is completed.