Research Report
Historical research of NATIONAL LAND PLANNING AND UTILIZATION ACT
Ⅰ. Background and Objective
▶ Significance of research on legislative history
○ Like organism, a legal system sometimes invites troubles which were unpredictable at the time of enactment, and sometimes gets amended to respond to a new phenomenon.
- Research on legislative history is meaningful in that it can suggest the direction of future development of the legal system by summing up changes in the history of relevant statutes, the process of system changes, and the historical course of development of the legal system underpinning said changes for at least half a century.
○ Legislation governing national land planning and utilization, which is the subject of research on legislative history, combines multiple systems and has been amended fairly frequently.
- The National Land Planning and Utilization Act is an act that integrated planning systems scattered across individual statutes or regulations at the time of its enactment and unified various policy tools such as the system requiring permission for development activities, the building of infrastructure conducted as part of development activities, implementation of urban planning facilities projects, and the system requiring permission for land transactions; and has had much bearing on the industrialization and urbanization of the Republic of Korea.
- Legislation governing national land planning and utilization provides a planning system, special-purpose district, area, and zone, system requiring permission for development activities, system requiring permission for land transactions, etc. in order to rationalize land use by citizens, and the feasibility of implementation of the legal system cannot be explained in detail until grounds for the frequent amendments have been clarified.
▶ Research objective
○ The purpose of this research is to make sure that the legislation governing national land planning and utilization can be used as basic materials to identify whether the National Land Planning and Utilization Act has evolved in the way originally intended, whether any improvement is needed, and in which direction such improvement should take place by surveying the history of changes in each system contained in the legislation.
Ⅱ. Main Content
▶ Socioeconomic background of enactment of the National Land Planning and Utilization Act and details thereof
○ The Urban Planning Act had led the industrialization and urbanization of the Korean society since its enactment in 1962, but the introduction of quasi-agricultural and forest areas in 1994 worsened urban sprawl, triggering a discussion on possible transition to a plan-first-development-later system.
- Planning systems became revamped, as evidenced by the reclassification of an urban plan into an urban master plan and an urban management plan and the introduction of a Class II district-unit planning system.
- Quasi-agricultural and forest areas and quasi-urban areas, which were the main factors fueling urban sprawl, were abolished, subdivided into three special-purpose areas, which are planned control areas, production control areas, and conservation control areas; and urban areas were partially adjusted in the process of formulating plans while maintaining designations of the residential, commercial, industrial, and green areas under the previous National Land Planning and Utilization Act.
- A legal basis was established for refusing to engage in development activities by introducing a system requiring permission for development activities;
○ Various plans and systems based on statutes or regulations governing national land planning and utilization have brought about a lot of problems in the process of implementation; and in addition, it can be said that demographic changes such as low birth rates and a rapidly aging population, changing circumstances of the times as evidenced by emergence of decentralization policies, etc. shifts in housing policies, various development policy processes, etc. may have played a role in the amendment of the National Land Planning and Utilization Act, which is a general law.
- The National Land Planning and Utilization Act has been amended quite frequently because it serves as guidelines for other statutes or regulations and also because it has to be changed along with other statutes or regulations as it reflects them.
○ Meaning of definitions in the general provisions and the current status of enactment and amendment
- The definitions contained in the general provisions are correlated with actual provisions, and in fact, the definitions demonstrate the characteristics of a planned legislative system, having actual effects on their own in that they prescribe the types of infrastructure, etc.
○ Changes in authority for urban planning in accordance with decentralization
- While the authority to formulate urban plans is devolved from the central government to a local government as decentralization prevails, adjustment has been made at the central government level, such as the central government reserving the authority to formulate urban plans on its own if necessary to maintain consistent policies for the management of national land.
○ It is pointed out that a metropolitan urban plan and an urban master plan, which are a higher-level plan of the urban management plan, define the future vision of urban development but lack the legal binding power.
- It is necessary for several cities to jointly respond to the broadening of urban issues, such as traffic and environment, but there is a limitation that the adjustment is made based on the interest of local governments.
- An urban master plan focusing on the population index needs to be connected with policies for population, such as low birth rates and the aging, policies for the balanced development of national land, and other policies.
○ An urban management plan is the concept involving various policy means in terms of contents and is a dispositive plan that restricts citizens' property rights.
- Frequent amendments have been made with regard to the designation, etc. of a special-purpose district based on the district-unit planning system, which reflects the circumstances of the times, such as the strengthening or relaxation of regulation on the use of land by citizens.
○ As the expanded application of the system requiring permission for development activities to non-urban areas causes inconvenience in the use of land, amendments have been made to reduce activities subject to the system requiring permission for development activities as well as to continuously strengthen the infrastructure-levy area system, growth management plan system, etc. to prevent urban sprawl due to the expansion of cities.
○ Chapter VI of the National Land Planning and Utilization Act regarding restrictions on acts in special-purpose areas, special-purpose districts, and special-purpose zones has been frequently amended due to the paradigm shift in urban issues including society, culture, and welfare, as well as the change in economic focuses.
○ Chapter VII of the National Land Planning and Utilization Act regarding the implementation of urban or Gun planning facility projects provides for the procedures for ordinary implementation of projects and has been amended by reflecting the simplification of procedures for development projects and the transfer of authority for implementation plans to the regions.
III. Expected Effects
▶ Implications
○ The National Land Planning and Utilization Act has the general legal status to form another development legislation in terms of the planned management of urban issues, and the change process has a constant goal in that this Act has tried the comprehensive land management.
- The National Land Planning and Utilization Act has been amended 27 times for 18 years since its enactment, which means that various systems introduced to achieve the purpose under the National Land Planning and Utilization Act have actually had many issues and limitations.
- The objective of planned management in urban areas has been achieved in a certain degree, but the process for change in the growth management system or the system requiring permission for development activities shows that such objective had limitations in addressing urban expansion into non-urban areas and urban sprawl caused thereby.
▶ Proposal on the improvement of legislation governing the national land planning and utilization
○ The National Land Planning and Utilization Act has been significantly changed due to social and cultural issues, such as the implementation of local autonomy systems, the flow of decentralization, and the issue of sustainable urban environment, together with the rapid growth period before 2003 and the expansion, etc. of urban issues thereunder.
- The social and economic development process has changed from the expansion of population and urban expansion to the reduction of population, the problems of unoccupied houses, etc.; the environment issues in surrounding areas have become the global issue of climate change; and the system for regulation on land use with focus on physical facilities is about how to secure the non-physical values, such as a wind corridor and landscape, demanding a qualitative change.
○ Addressing microscopic social and economic problems is also an important policy task, but it may be requested to reorganize the management of national land from a macroscopic point of view and urban management with the concentration of population in a more balanced way.