Research Reports

According to the National Statistical Office's announcement, out of the total of 18.13 million houses in 2019, the number of houses over 20 years old was 8.7 million, accounting for 48.0%. In particular, among the 3.92 million detached houses, those that are more than 20 years old are 2.87 million units, accounting for 73.3%. As such, the aging of single-family homes and multi-family homes has intensified, interest in renovation and remodeling has increased significantly. However, the number of cases where renovation, repair, or remodeling of old buildings is restricted due to the strengthening and regulation of building laws has been increasing. For example, there is a demand for the installation of elevators or evacuation staircases in existing buildings, or the expansion of parking facilities, toilets, bathrooms, and mechanical facilities, but there are many cases where such projects are difficult to carry out due to the tightened building standards such as floor area ratio and building-to-land ratio. Therefore, it is required to promote renovation or remodeling of old houses by easing the application of building codes to existing buildings or expanding special cases. In this study, in order to activate the remodeling of aging houses, legal obstacles related to the remodeling project were found out, while supporting measures in terms of finance and taxation were studied. In order to revitalize the remodeling business for old housing, the reduction of building standards, taxation, and financial support systems in force in Japan and Europe were reviewed, and institutional improvement plans suitable for Korea were suggested. As a result of the study, the plan to improve the system to promote remodeling of old houses can be summarized as follows: 1) When remodeling existing buildings, it is necessary to specifically specify the targets that are required to ease the application of the current building codes, and simplify the procedure so that the mitigation can be made without deliberation by the Building Committee within a certain scale or range. However, when mitigating the application of building standards, it is necessary to check structural safety, verify whether the act of increasing or expanding the floor area is not harmful to structural safety, and whether it contributes to the alleviation of inconvenience to users or the increase of social benefits. 2) Exemption from the obligation to install additional parking is required, if the number of rental units or rental area linked to the owner's profits is not increased, and the additional parking demand is less than one unit due to the renovation or remodeling, 3) It is desirable to designate an area where it is unreasonable to rebuild into apartment through the redevelopment of detached houses as a remodeling revitalization zone and to induce improvement of the residential environment through collectively building regulation relaxation. 4) In order to improve the residential environment of the semi-basement floor and expand the parking lot in the city, in case of deconstructing the semi-basement floor and using it as a parking lot, it is needed to allow vertical expansion on the rooftop as much as the disappeared building area. 5) By excluding the floor area required for the installation of elevators from the calculation of the floor area ratio, the installation or expansion of elevator should be supported, in old buildings where there is no room for the floor area ratio. Meanwhile, financial and tax support related to renovation and remodeling of houses has been mainly focused on apartment houses, and support for small and medium-sized houses is insufficient. In order to revitalize the remodeling of old houses in the future, it is necessary to secure independent financial resources to support the improvement of old houses in the private sector by separating the National Housing & Urban Fund from the public sector-oriented residential environment improvement projects. In addition, referring to the cases in Europe, in order to improve the residential environment of low-income families and reduce heating costs in winter, it is possible to review plans to promote a project to replace windows and window frames of old houses nationwide by providing subsidies from the government.