Gwangju City Enforces Boundary Adjustments Between Local Governments During Industrial Complex Development

Effective January next year... Applied to joint development projects of Bitgreen Industrial Complex and Advanced 3 District in Gwangju and Jeonnam regions

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 16th that the related Local Autonomy Act was amended at the end of last year and will be enforced from January next year.

Until now, when developing industrial complexes spanning two or more local governments, the jurisdictional area had to be adjusted according to a rationally standardized zoning before project completion. However, when conflicts of interest arose between adjacent local governments, there was no special adjustment procedure, making boundary adjustments practically impossible.

This caused confusion in various permits, tax payments, and administrative actions, causing inconvenience to resident companies.

Accordingly, Gwangju City requested improvements through central government ministries such as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, as well as government joint audit system improvement channels, to establish a legal system that can resolve corporate inconveniences and conflicts between adjacent local governments during the industrial complex development process. As a result, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety accepted this, and the amendment to the Local Autonomy Act was passed at the National Assembly plenary session on December 9 last year.

With the amendment of the Local Autonomy Act, the newly established boundary change procedure allows a developer conducting a development project spanning two or more local governments to request boundary adjustment by submitting a boundary change proposal to the heads of the related local governments. The Minister of the Interior and Safety can then coordinate the boundary change adjustment application through the local governments by holding consultations with a voluntary boundary change council involving related local governments and residents, followed by a resolution procedure of the Central Dispute Mediation Committee.

If, during this process, the council is not formed within 120 days or no agreement is reached, and no amicable resolution seems possible, the committee is empowered to enforce compulsory adjustment ex officio, establishing an institutional mechanism.

Through this, a turning point has been created to resolve long-standing jurisdictional boundary adjustment issues in development projects stalled due to disagreements between local governments, such as the Yulchon Industrial Complex and Gumi Industrial Complex, and it is expected to spread nationwide.

In particular, it is anticipated that this will be applied proactively to boundary adjustments for the Bitgreen Industrial Complex and the Advanced 3rd District Development Project, jointly developed by the Gwangju-Jeonnam region, to resolve current issues.

Park Jeong-hwan, Director of the City’s Job and Economy Office, said, “Boundary adjustment discussions are not about political purposes or interests between local governments but must be reviewed primarily from the perspective of resident companies,” adding, “Thanks to the active efforts of the practitioners, long-standing and difficult civil complaints within development project districts nationwide can be resolved, which is meaningful.”

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