For publicly supported maintenance projects, reconstruction and redevelopment associations can now decide on construction cost verification at their discretion.
Seoul City said on the 12th that it will allow associations in publicly supported maintenance projects to decide on construction cost verification at their discretion based on business site conditions and the need for verification, and that it will ease unnecessary administrative burdens by deleting the field for "head of household" from the list of land and other owners submitted when applying for approval to form an association promotion committee.
Currently, in Seoul's publicly supported maintenance projects, construction cost verification is required before the association member sales notice after the first project implementation plan approval, regardless of whether there are changes such as an increase in construction costs. This measure has applied to associations that issued bid notices for selecting a construction company after Dec. 2023 to prevent construction cost disputes between associations and constructors. Seoul City will revise the "contractor selection standards for Seoul's publicly supported maintenance projects" by the second half of this year to change the construction cost verification system in a way that respects the autonomy of associations.
Publicly supported maintenance projects are a system in which the public sector, including Seoul City, provides administrative support from planning to completion so that redevelopment and reconstruction projects led by private associations can proceed quickly. Construction cost verification usually takes 60 days and up to 75 days. A separate verification fee is also required depending on the size of the construction costs.
However, on the ground, issues had been raised that even establishments without legally defined increases in construction costs or where association members do not request verification must go through the same procedures. Critics said the uniform procedures, which do not consider each establishment's circumstances, only lengthen the project period and expense.
Seoul City will also streamline the application documents for approval to form a promotion committee, an early stage of maintenance projects.
Until now, to apply for approval to form an association promotion committee, the "name of the head of household" had to be written on the list of land and other owners. As a result, a separate resident registration certificate had to be submitted to confirm the head of household for each owner, in addition to confirming ownership of land and buildings.
Seoul City determined that head-of-household information is not strictly necessary for deciding whether to approve the formation of a promotion committee, and amended the relevant enforcement rules to delete the head-of-household entry field from the list of land and other owners.
Cho Wan-seok, Seoul City's director of regulatory innovation planning, said, "If even a single sheet of paper or a single verification step places an excessive burden on residents, making reasonable improvements is true regulatory innovation," and added, "We will continue to identify unreasonable regulations from the public's perspective and actively support Seoul's maintenance projects so they can proceed more swiftly and smoothly."