Seoul City Provides Up to 20 Million KRW Support for Renovation of Old Houses

[Asia Economy Reporter Onyu Lim] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is significantly expanding support for home repairs of aging houses in low-rise residential areas. Through the 'Seoul Gakkum Housing Project,' Seoul announced on the 6th that it will provide up to 20 million KRW in repair costs, including insulation and waterproofing, for a total of 600 aging houses in low-rise residential areas this year. A total of 5.3 billion KRW will be invested, and participants will be recruited continuously through district offices.

Since the launch of the Gakkum Housing Project in 2016, Seoul has supported repair costs for a total of 646 houses until 2019, completing improvements to create safe and comfortable living environments. This year, the target has been greatly expanded to a scale similar to the support provided over the past four years. A Seoul city official explained, "More citizens want 'regeneration' by repairing and reusing rather than simply demolishing and rebuilding, and considering that the satisfaction rate among project participants reaches 90%, we have significantly expanded the scale this year."

A survey of 150 participants in the Gakkum Housing Project by Seoul showed that 90% were satisfied with the project. The most satisfying aspects were identified as 'improvement of the house's appearance,' 'saving heating costs due to improved insulation performance,' and 'creating a safe and comfortable living environment.'

From this year, the project procedures will also be simplified. The preliminary candidate selection process will be eliminated, and subsidies will be provided as long as the appropriateness of the building construction is confirmed. Previously, subsidy recipients were selected up to 120%, and priority was determined based on the degree of house aging and other criteria.

Application has been unified so that loan support can be received simultaneously while receiving subsidy support. Previously, applications for Seoul Gakkum Housing and housing improvement loan support had to be submitted separately, but from this year, loan support applications can be made simultaneously when submitting the Gakkum Housing commencement report.

Also, if it is difficult to carry out construction all at once due to the owner's financial situation, repair support can be received annually and by construction type within the maximum support limit. This considers cases where urgent house repairs are needed but financial capacity is insufficient.

Participants in the Gakkum Housing Project will be recruited continuously through district offices from the 13th until September 29th. Eligible targets are single-family houses, multi-family houses, multi-unit houses, and row houses that have been approved for use for more than 20 years within the housing performance improvement support zones. Subsidies can be received when carrying out construction to improve housing performance such as waterproofing or insulation.

Kang Maeng-hoon, Director of Urban Regeneration at Seoul City, said, "A culture of citizens actively participating in repairing and maintaining their homes is being established in low-rise residential areas," and added, "Through the Seoul Gakkum Housing Project, we hope that citizens who have hesitated to repair their homes due to repair costs in inconvenient environments will be able to repair their old houses and live in better residential environments."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.