Allowing Up to 40% Residential Area in Minimum Land Use Regulation Zones

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo In-ho] The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 2nd that it will hold an administrative notice from the 3rd to the 23rd to revise the guidelines related to the designation of Minimum Location Regulation Zones to enhance the effectiveness of the system.

The Minimum Location Regulation Zone system allows for the development of deteriorated residential areas and station areas within the city center into mixed-use areas combining residential, commercial, and cultural functions by exempting location regulations based on zoning districts and separately setting building use, floor area ratio, building coverage ratio, height, and other factors.

However, since the system was first introduced in 2015, only four areas have been designated as Minimum Location Regulation Zones over the past five years, raising concerns about its lack of effectiveness.

In response, the Ministry of Land explained that it commissioned a research project to the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements to prepare improvement measures to enhance the system's effectiveness.

Among the improvement measures, the guideline revisions necessary include relaxing the residential function ratio limit (from 20% to 40%), easing the mixed-use criteria (from at least 3 functions to at least 2 functions), and abolishing the total volume limit. These will begin with the administrative notice of the revision draft and proceed to full guideline amendments.

The revision draft relaxes the maximum allowable ratio of residential function floor area within the total floor area of Minimum Location Regulation Zones in special cities, metropolitan cities, or large cities with populations over 500,000 from the existing 20% to 40%, thereby improving project feasibility.

In particular, for Minimum Location Regulation Zones aimed at revitalizing aging residential areas, the maximum allowable ratio of residential function is relaxed up to 50%, laying the foundation for significantly expanding housing supply.

When establishing plans for Minimum Location Regulation Zones, the mandatory requirement to combine at least three functions among residential, office/sales, industrial, cultural, and tourism functions is relaxed to include at least two functions. However, to prevent concentration on a single function, the maximum allowable ratio for any one function is limited to 60%.

Furthermore, currently, the total volume of possible Minimum Location Regulation Zone designations is limited to 0.5% to 1.0% of residential, commercial, and industrial area sizes per local government, which has made local governments reluctant to designate zones. This total volume regulation will be abolished to encourage active designation of zones.

The minimum area requirement for designation of Minimum Location Regulation Zones (at least 10,000㎡) will also be abolished, allowing for flexible planning regardless of area size.

The Ministry of Land plans to apply the revised contents starting with Busan and Gunpo, which were selected as pilot project sites last year to revitalize industrial areas and are preparing to designate Minimum Location Regulation Zones.

Additionally, matters requiring legal amendments, such as expanding the scope of zone designation and allowing resident proposals, will have amendment bills proposed within this month.

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