Small-Scale Buildings in Seoul Do Not Require Parking Lots

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim On-yu] From now on, small-scale buildings constructed within Seoul's urban regeneration activation areas will not be required to have parking lots.

On the 22nd, Seoul City announced that it has revised and promulgated the "Ordinance on Urban Regeneration Activation and Support," which includes easing the parking lot installation standards within urban regeneration activation areas to promote small-scale construction.

According to the current Parking Lot Act, parking lots must be mandatorily installed based on the building area when constructing or expanding buildings. However, in urban regeneration activation areas where many old low-rise houses are densely packed, it has been difficult to secure parking lot sites due to small lot sizes or narrow frontage.

With this ordinance revision, if there is a public parking lot near the urban regeneration activation area and the urban regeneration activation plan includes provisions for easing parking lot requirements, parking lots do not need to be installed. This applies to new construction, reconstruction, and rebuilding that require one parking space, as well as extensions that require one additional parking space.

The city requested each district office, which is responsible for planning, to reflect the plan to ease parking lot standards in the urban regeneration activation plan after analyzing the status of public parking lots and parking supply and demand in these areas.

Furthermore, the city recognizes that there are various reasons beyond parking issues for the low rate of small-scale construction within urban regeneration activation areas and is promoting various institutional improvements such as easing building coverage ratio and building line regulations.

According to the Seoul Institute, from 2015 to 2019, the new construction rate in 13 urban regeneration activation areas in Seoul was only 4.1%, indicating an urgent need to improve construction conditions.

Ryu Hoon, Director of Seoul City's Urban Regeneration Office, said, "We expect that easing the parking lot installation standards will contribute to revitalizing small-scale construction in urban regeneration areas with poor residential environments," and added, "We will cooperate with each district office to ensure that the system is actively implemented on the ground."

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