Safety Inspections Vary Like a Rubber Band Depending on the Administration

When the Yoon Seok-yeol administration announced on the 10th that it would allow reconstruction projects for apartments over 30 years old without safety inspections, controversy grew over the fact that safety inspection standards have been changing like a rubber band depending on the administration. The procedure of diagnosing the safety of buildings to assess the necessity of reconstruction projects has been reduced to a tool for controlling the volume of reconstruction according to the administration's policy.

The government's "Plan to Expand Housing Supply and Supplement the Construction Market" can be seen as fundamentally removing the nail called safety inspection. Among the 11.95 million apartment households over 30 years old, 15% (1.73 million households) will become eligible for reconstruction initiation. This measure was introduced to correct the housing supply shortage caused by the Moon Jae-in administration's real estate regulations and market contraction due to high interest rates and inflation. Some voices express concerns about side effects such as environmental issues like resource waste, intensified concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area, and deterioration of residential environments due to urban overcrowding if reconstruction is excessively promoted through deregulation.

This controversy is not new. Safety inspections were introduced in 2003 as a procedure under the "Act on Maintenance and Improvement of Urban Areas and Dwelling Conditions" to check structural safety, residential environment, facility aging, and cost-benefit items for apartment reconstruction projects. However, the standards have fluctuated like a rubber band depending on the administration's objectives. The evaluation weight of the structural safety item was introduced during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, rising from 45% to 50%, then lowered to 20% during the Park Geun-hye administration. During the Moon Jae-in administration, when real estate prices soared, the structural safety weight was raised back to 50%. Apartments such as Mok-dong 9·11 Complex, Godeok Jugong Complex 9, Taereung Woosung, and Gwangjang Geukdong Apartments failed the safety inspection at that time.

원본보기 아이콘

Under the current administration, President Yoon pledged to abolish safety inspections as an election promise, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) announced the "Plan to Relax Reconstruction Safety Inspection Standards" in December 2022. The weight of the "structural safety" evaluation item was reduced from 50% to 30%, and the reconstruction approval score threshold was relaxed from 30 points to 45 points or less. The government has announced that it will further relax the safety inspection evaluation criteria as an additional measure following the announcement the day before. A MOLIT official explained, "It is necessary to revise safety inspections focusing on residential environment and facility aging according to aging," adding, "We will supplement the safety inspection system further based on expert opinions to focus on these areas."

There are also voices opposing the de facto transformation of safety inspections into a mere formality. The safety inspection industry pointed out that judging solely by elapsed years without safety or technical assessments could lead to poor building management and adverse effects such as real estate price increases. This also conflicts with the "7th Basic Plan for Construction Technology Promotion (2023?2027)" announced by MOLIT, which specifies conducting detailed safety inspections on aging facilities of types 2 and 3 that are over 30 years old. A representative from the Facility Safety Association stated, "If reconstruction is indiscriminately implemented based only on service years, apartments without structural safety issues will also undergo reconstruction, leading to serious environmental problems due to construction waste disposal from demolition," and argued, "Safety inspections should verify aging compliance and adjust project timing or priority based on results to ensure facility safety."

If reconstruction regulations are loosened and reconstruction decisions are made focusing on "aging" rather than "safety," the project speed will accelerate, but long-term issues such as urban overcrowding and structures vulnerable to disasters may arise and need to be addressed.

An Hong-seop, honorary professor at Gunsan University and president of the Construction Safety Society, said, "Economic motives cannot be suppressed, and deregulation to increase supply ultimately involves a political judgment of 49 to 51," but added, "In the long term, it could become a poison. The population is decreasing, and Seoul is already highly dense. If floor area ratios increase, the urban residential environment will deteriorate. Urban densification can make cities vulnerable to disasters and is undesirable from an environmental perspective."

Professor Cha Hee-seong of Ajou University said, "From the perspective of improving residential environments, it is necessary to view this from the standpoint of the overall public benefit rather than blocking it with safety inspections," but added, "If floor area ratios are increased and reconstruction occurs only in some densely populated areas of the metropolitan area, population overcrowding in the metropolitan area and regional extinction could worsen polarization, so factors like overcrowding and housing cycles must be considered. It is necessary to incorporate good ideas from urban planning such as transportation policies and securing public spaces for residential environment improvement."

© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.