Gyeonggi-do Promotes Delegation of Land Use Zone Reversion Tasks to City and County Offices... Expected to Prevent Uncontrolled Development

Gyeonggi Provincial Government Gwanggyo New Office Building

Gyeonggi Province is promoting a plan to delegate the restoration work to cities and counties only when district unit plans are lifted or urban and county planning facilities become ineffective, resulting in the reversion of land use zones. In this case, the procedure, which used to take up to two years, will be shortened, and the province expects this to prevent indiscriminate development.

On the 8th, Gyeonggi Province announced that as a follow-up measure to the proposal for "additional expansion of delegation of duties regarding land use zone restoration" raised at the "Province-City/County Urban Policy Meeting" held on the 24th of last month, it plans to conduct a status survey and listen to the opinions of cities and counties.

Land use zones are classified by the use of land, such as agricultural and forest areas, residential areas, commercial areas, and management areas. Land use zone restoration refers to the case where an area originally designated as an agricultural and forest area was changed to a management area due to the establishment of a district unit plan, but then reverted to its original agricultural and forest area use after the district unit plan was lifted.

The problem is that under the current system, the administrative procedures for such land use zone restoration are the same as those for other land use zone changes, and the administrative process, including preliminary investigation, committee consultation, and application for change decision to Gyeonggi Province, can take up to two years.

During this time required to complete the administrative procedures for land use zone restoration, the area remains classified as a management area, where development activities are more relaxed compared to agricultural and forest areas.

At the urban policy meeting, Dongducheon City pointed out this issue and requested that the duties related to land use zone restoration be expanded from the province to cities and counties. Dongducheon City stated that the administrative procedures passing through Gyeonggi Province can take several years, raising concerns about indiscriminate development.

In response, the province decided to identify the current status of land use zone restoration and proceed with collecting opinions from cities and counties by the 17th of this month to actively consider delegating authority for systematic management of land use zones and prevention of indiscriminate development.

Additionally, the province plans to propose to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport the requests made by cities and counties, including ▲simplification of decisions on rivers (disaster prevention facilities) (omitting urban planning committee reviews, shortening the process by at least three months) and ▲relaxation of location restrictions for railway stations (urban and county planning facilities) and general medical facilities (urban and county planning facilities) (allowing them to be located regardless of certain land use zones such as conservation green areas and conservation management areas).

Kim Ki-beom, Director of the Urban Policy Division of the province, explained, "The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is currently promoting a reform of the urban planning system to keep up with changes in the times. Through communication with 31 cities and counties, we plan to share the changing direction of urban policy and continuously pursue system improvements by identifying unreasonable regulations and inefficient systems."