Enforcement of Hot Spring Act Amendment on 21st... Simplification of Approval Procedures for Changes in Hot Spring Development Area

Change of Jurisdictional Mayor or County Governor Possible When Hot Spring Public Protection Area Changes Within 10%

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] In the future, minor matters within 10% of the hot spring public protection zone area can be approved by the local mayor and county governor, and a penalty system for hot spring specialized inspection agencies will be newly established.

On the 20th, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced that the 'Partial Amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Hot Spring Act' to simplify the approval procedure for changes in hot spring development areas will be promulgated and enforced on the 21st. Previously, minor changes to the hot spring source protection district required for large-scale hot spring development could omit approval from the provincial governor, but for small-scale hot spring developments in the hot spring public protection zone, even minor changes required approval from the provincial governor, which was pointed out as unreasonable.

Accordingly, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety allowed changes within a minor increase or decrease of 10% of the hot spring public protection zone development area to be made by the local mayor and county governor without going through the provincial governor's approval. Through this amendment, the Ministry expects the hot spring development period to be shortened and rapid development to be promoted.

Additionally, a system is newly established to impose 'penalties' instead of 'business suspension' on hot spring specialized inspection agencies conducting inspections related to hot springs. The penalty for hot spring specialized inspection agencies will be imposed differentially from a minimum of 100,000 KRW to a maximum of 1,100,000 KRW per day, depending on the annual sales scale.

Furthermore, to resolve the issue of applying different deposit periods among local governments due to unclear regulations on the deposit period for the performance bond related to hot spring discovery report acceptance, the deposit period for the performance bond upon report acceptance is clearly defined as 'until the day one year from the discovery report date.'

Meanwhile, the 'Partial Amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Hot Spring Act' to specify methods for hearing residents' opinions on hot spring development, viewing periods, etc., will be promulgated and enforced simultaneously.

Park Seong-ho, Director of the Local Autonomy and Decentralization Office, said, “With this amendment to the Enforcement Decree and Enforcement Rules of the Hot Spring Act, we expect the hot spring development period to be shortened and for local residents to have an opportunity to actively participate in the hot spring development process.” He added, “We will do our best to actively discover and support differentiated medical and industrial policies for hot springs by region so that hot springs beloved by residents can be realized.”