Inspection Completed for 147 Dangerous Buildings with Safety Grades D and E in Seoul

[Asia Economy Reporter Onyu Lim] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 4th that it has completed a field inspection of 146 dangerous buildings since October last year.

In this inspection, inspection teams consisting of three members including employees from the district Architectural Safety Centers, architectural engineers, and structural engineers checked the safety and maintenance status of dangerous buildings rated D and E. As a result, 44 sites were identified as requiring detailed safety inspections or diagnoses, 52 sites required safety measures, and 21 sites resolved their dangerous building status through demolition, repair/reinforcement, or upgrading of ratings.

This year, the city plans to establish a safety management plan covering three major areas (① support for safety inspections, ② maintenance of dangerous facilities, ③ improvement of management systems) and eight detailed tasks to address the issues pointed out in the field inspections and improve management systems.

In the support for safety inspections area, ① detailed safety diagnoses will be supported when repairs or reinforcements are needed, ② in addition to the regular safety inspections conducted three times a year by the management entity under the current 「Facility Safety Act」, the district offices will conduct one detailed safety inspection every two years, and ③ seasonal safety inspections will be carried out to detect and eliminate seasonal accident factors such as subsidence, overturning, and fires occurring during vulnerable periods like thawing, rainy season, typhoons, holidays, and winter.

In the maintenance of dangerous facilities area, ① structures and railings, fences, and abandoned waste posing risks of falling or overturning will be maintained, and penalties such as fines will be strengthened for facilities with poor safety management, and ② regular inspections will be conducted three times a year to crack down on poor safety management.

In the management system improvement area, ① support will be provided for difficult procedures such as registering building information, submitting design documents, establishing and submitting building maintenance plans, conducting regular safety inspections three times a year, and submitting results to the Facility Management System (FMS) that owners of dangerous buildings must use, ② meetings among stakeholders including project entities, permitting departments, and safety management departments will be held in housing maintenance project zones to strengthen safety management, and ③ proposals to amend the 「Special Act on the Safety and Maintenance of Facilities」 will be pursued to require regular detailed safety inspections every two years for small-scale buildings and to improve the system so that submitted safety inspection reports suspected of being inadequate can be evaluated to prevent poor inspections.

Seoul established the Regional Architectural Safety Center within the Housing and Architecture Headquarters in 2019, and districts also set up Architectural Safety Centers and special accounts for architectural safety to secure safety management budgets. On January 7th, the 「Seoul Metropolitan Building Management Ordinance」 was enacted and promulgated.

Kim Seong-bo, head of the Seoul Housing and Architecture Headquarters, said, “Safety management of private buildings depends most importantly on owners’ efforts to conduct regular safety inspections and remove risk factors. Additionally, it is necessary to expand the administrative organizations of Seoul and district offices to supervise and guide aging dangerous buildings.”