Dongjak-gu revises redevelopment authority transfer criteria from 500 units to 30,000 square meters

Dongjak-gu announced Tuesday that it held the second meeting of the "District TF on Redevelopment Zone Designation Authority Transfer" at the district office on Wednesday. Department heads overseeing redevelopment projects from 16 districts attended — one more than the 15 districts that participated in the first meeting.

The participating districts agreed to revise their proposed amendment to the relevant laws, replacing the previously discussed threshold of "fewer than 500 housing units" with an area-based standard of "30,000 square meters or less" to define the small-scale redevelopment zones whose designation authority they seek to take over from the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

A Dongjak-gu official said the change reflects the intent to apply a more objective, area-based standard, since unit counts can change during the course of a project, while also developing a "small-scale redevelopment zone guideline" that takes into account future project types and local conditions.

The districts also discussed ways to reduce unnecessary administrative procedures by broadening the scope of what qualifies as a minor revision to a redevelopment plan. They agreed to pursue raising the threshold for minor changes — covering redevelopment zone area, infrastructure scale, and building coverage and floor area ratios — from less than 10 percent to less than 20 percent. In addition, "changes to the use or scale of public facility buildings" will be added to the list of items eligible for minor-revision treatment.

The districts also took into account that a transfer of redevelopment zone designation authority to the district level would necessarily carry with it the authority to conduct integrated reviews. Accordingly, the existing agenda item on "transferring integrated review authority to districts" was refined into a more concrete proposal for "establishing an integrated review committee for small-scale redevelopment zones."

Based on the results of the meeting, Dongjak-gu plans to finalize the proposed reform and submit it to the 204th regular meeting of the Seoul District Mayors' Council on Wednesday, after which it will request a revision to relevant laws from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

"We will put in place sufficient safeguards to address the concerns raised by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, and present a rational reform proposal that both the city and the districts can support," Dongjak-gu District Mayor Ryu Sam-young said.

At the TF's first meeting on Oct. 2, the districts discussed not only the transfer of redevelopment zone designation authority but also the transfer of integrated review authority. The push for these transfers could put the districts on a collision course with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and groups representing association heads — including the Seoul Redevelopment Project Federation — which have taken a negative stance on the matter.