[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 1st that it will expand the installation of Regional Building Safety Centers and conduct annual building safety evaluations starting next year based on newly established building safety evaluation indicators. Through this, the Ministry plans to establish a regional hub safety management system and strengthen building safety management.
The Regional Building Safety Center is a local government organization that professionally reviews technical aspects such as building permits and construction site inspections, which were difficult for responsible public officials to review in building administration. It is currently installed and operated in 34 out of 243 local governments nationwide (4 metropolitan and 30 basic local governments).
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has made various efforts this year to expand the installation and enhance the operation of Regional Building Safety Centers.
First, to comprehensively evaluate the regional building safety level, including the number of fatalities at construction sites, a "building safety-related evaluation indicator" was newly established in the joint evaluation indicators for local governments, and annual evaluations will be conducted starting next year. The evaluation indicators include ▲ the level of installation and operation of Regional Building Safety Centers by local governments ▲ the level of fatalities at construction sites and buildings relative to the number of building safety inspections ▲ the progress level of fire safety performance reinforcement projects.
In addition, to support securing professional personnel such as architects, technical experts, and top-level technicians who must be mandatorily employed by each center, the Ministry continuously negotiated with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and local government dedicated organizations to allocate standard labor costs, securing a total of 99 standard labor cost units for next year.
The Ministry is currently promoting a revision of the law mandating the installation of centers targeting local governments with populations of 500,000 or more, based on the judgment that the need for regional building safety management is higher in large cities and the prevention of building safety accidents is more important. Also, through pilot operations targeting Muju and Jangsu counties in Jeonbuk, the Ministry has prepared and distributed an "Integrated Operation Guideline" including a standard model for center operation suitable for the role of regional hub safety management systems.
Each local government is also actively discovering and promoting regionally specialized projects along with expanding the installation of Regional Building Safety Centers, considering the enforcement of the "Building Management Act" and local conditions.
Seoul City has completed the installation of centers in all 25 autonomous districts and is reducing safety blind spots by managing and inspecting hazardous processes such as demolition and excavation at small and medium-sized private construction sites with high accident risks.
Considering the large number of construction sites in the region, Sejong City has designated the 4th of every month as "Sejong Building Safety Inspection Day" and introduced a system to evaluate construction site safety and quality management, which is currently in operation.
Kangwon Province, the first metropolitan city/province to install a Regional Building Safety Center, is actively promoting fire safety performance reinforcement projects to prevent fire accident damages in regional buildings.
Kim Sang-moon, Director of Building Policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said, "Through comprehensive evaluation of regional building safety and distribution of operation guidelines, the expansion of Regional Building Safety Centers and systematic center operations are expected," adding, "Since the expansion of Regional Building Safety Centers is directly linked to the safety of the people, we will actively strive to establish a robust regional hub management system while discovering and promoting excellent cases and preparing support measures for the centers."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
