The redevelopment projects underway in Seoul and other metropolitan cities aim not to recover the urban functions or improve the living environment but to expand the housing supplies based on the principle of profitability. Under such circumstances, this study was aimed at analyzing the living environment and policies for redevelopment of apartment housing complexes, and thereby, suggesting some policy alternatives to improve the urban living environment.
To this end, characteristics or living environment of redeveloped or reconstructed apartment housing complexes was analyzed, and thereupon, experts were polled on the public control of the redevelopment projects, while people's demographic variables were examined. The results of this study can be summarized as follows;
First, it is necessary to activate the block-wise development plans.
Second, it is essential to differentiate the development criteria depending on the landscape plans. In order to control the current redevelopment methods in terms of efficient land uses or preservation of the urban landscape, it is deemed necessary to control the redevelopment projects which tend to be high-rising or highly dense, and to this end, it is also necessary to link the average height and slope of the site with living density or height control.
Third, people should be induced to participate in the redevelopment projects positively. In order to improve the quality of living environment, it is required to enhance the public nature of redevelopment projects by shifting from the profit-oriented to public-oriented projects. To this end, it is necessary to reestablish a new concept of social responsibility and roles for the redevelopment projects.
Fourth, it is necessary to arrange some measures for the residents. Although the residents are given the opportunity to reoccupy their apartment houses after redevelopment, it is not easy for them to find some temporary shelters during redevelopment period in consideration of their income level. So, it is required to build more rental apartment houses, while adopting a cyclical redevelopment approach.
Fifth, it is necessary to foster professional redevelopers. The current problems are illegal or irregular practices for various orders, corrupt redevelopment executive committees and rule-of-thumb redevelopment without analysis of profitability. Hence, it is urgently needed to foster the redevelopment professionals equipped with expertise and technology. Namely, more professional consultants well versed in the redevelopment projects should be brought up.
Sixth, it is necessary for redevelopers to secure a stable financing, because they should pay movement costs, while bearing a huge cost for redevelopment.
Lastly, this study may be significant in that it analyzed general conditions of redevelopment projects in terms of living environment and public controls and addressed problems and explored some practical policy alternatives to solve these problems and thus, provided for some basic data useful to designing and implementation of future urban and living environmental plans, and ultimately, facilitated discussions about the quality of the urban environment.