earticle

영어

The newly enacted National Land Use Planning Act aims at promoting the principle of ‘No-development-without-proper-planning.’ The new law in effect keeps private developers from developing land and building houses as they had done in the 1990s. The net effect will be a lack of development and supply of residential land, and diminished housing construction. Given that Korea still needs a large number of houses to meet growing demand, this situation needs to be resolved. We propose that regulations on land development be relaxed while maintaining the spirit of the new law. We also propose a system that would force local governments to rezone land when the housing market shows certain signs of a shortage. In the long-term, an overall rationalization of regulatory laws is needed, since too many laws impose restrictions on land development and construction. Local governments should be given more power to determine how to use land according to local needs and endowments.