The government seems to be going in the right direction with the plans is has announced on state-run rental housing. The problem for "national rental housing" has been the difficulty of finding space in urban areas and housing quality. In Seoul alone there are at least 200,000 households in demand of such housing, but the government has only secured enough space to build for maybe as many as 50,000 families. It wants to use land that used to be occupied by prisons, military bases, and schools as well as land that has been unused for long periods of time and other spaces, and then also destroy old and poorly built homes to build state-run rental housing, so it looks like there will be considerable improvement on the land question. The plan to increase the money spent on construction is welcome, too, because it will help rid rental housing of its "cheap" image.
The policy on private rental housing has only barely been determined and it will be June before the details are decided on, so as of yet it would be hard to judge the merits of it. If the basic directions of it, including participation by financial investors and measures to help sites that have gone bankrupt, then it might be really effective.
Key will be whether the plan gets implemented. Acquiring land in urban areas not only requires money, there can also so be obstacles as a result of differing views by the related government agencies. One can easily expect that when the government seeks to build housing on land that is being vacated by schools or military facilities, the related ministries could try to resist. There must be no setbacks in the course of swift arbitration and the securing of funds. State-run rental housing should have regular housing mixed in in the same neighborhoods, so that state-run housing is not seen as undesirable by the neighborhoods in question.
Some policy officials are suggesting that if common people's housing becomes relatively stabilized as a result of more state-run rental housing, apartment prices in Seoul's Gangnam area can be left to the market. Rental housing must not be a reckless and total means for the belief in market rules to spread on the housing market. Rental housing that focuses on the demand for basic housing and stabilizing housing prices remain separate issues. Common and middle class households seeking better housing can have those aspirations satisfied when stable prices follow.
The Hankyoreh, 28 April 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] 'Rental Housing Policy' Off to a Good Start |
