Housing redevelopment projects have been continuing over the last 4 decades in an effort to improve the poor housings, which is the inevitable result of a urbanization process. However, they brought diversified and complicate conflicts due to the limi...
Housing redevelopment projects have been continuing over the last 4 decades in an effort to improve the poor housings, which is the inevitable result of a urbanization process. However, they brought diversified and complicate conflicts due to the limitations of the projects - profit motive, individual unit development and private sector-led projects. Furthermore the deepening of the social democratic renewal since the 1990s has amplified the conflicts arising from the redevelopment, which became a critical social issue in the wake of the tragedy in Yongsan Redevelopment Project in 2009. As a result, the increase of publicness in housing redevelopment projects became a critical measure and the public sector-led redevelopment projects are expected to continue increasing in the diversified manners in the future.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the public roles in managing the conflicts in housing redevelopment projects, focusing on the government-led Sungnam Stage 1 Redevelopment Projects which reached the completion stage. For a better understanding of the development of conflicts in the corresponding case districts, this study has analyzed the development of conflicts on the basis of 5W's and 1H theory, compared the projects with other general projects and established an research framework consisting the major components of local governance - participation, transparency and responsibility - by applying the theory of the local governance occurring in fields in order to systematically analyze the conflicts in redevelopment projects and derive the conflict management strategies.
Findings suggest the followings:
First, regarding ‘participation’, if the stake-holders do not aggressively participate, the potential conflicts are likely to increase, which leads to a negative effect on conflict management whereas the convergence of residents’ opinions has a positive effect on the conflict management and the proceeding with project. Furthermore a lack of residents’ participatory abilities leads to a failure in managing conflicts because there is no practical effectiveness of participation.
Second, regarding ‘transparency’, if the release of information is limited, the residents have a doubt of the transparency of project, which leads to their non-cooperation in the projects. Insufficient or excessive promotion of projects also may reduce an understanding of projects or increase unnecessary misunderstanding, which will in turn result in conflicts. Furthermore the progress of projects without practical justification has a negative effect on the conflict management.
Third, regarding ‘responsibility’, if the responsibilities of stake-holders are not clearly allocated, stake-holders are not able to perform their roles, which leads to a negative effect on the conflict management. Furthermore a failure of administrative agencies’ leadership in managing conflicts leads to a failure in managing conflicts.
Based on the findings as above, the conflict management strategies for the public sector-led housing projects have been derived as follows.
First, regarding ‘participation’, there is a need to elaborate the participation procedures suiting the attributes of redevelopment. It is essential to strengthen the participation procedures before zoning maintenance districts in such a way that the opinions of residents can be reflected from the early stage of projects, which will eventually reduce the likelihood of conflicts in later stages. Furthermore there is a need to establish policies such as the establishment of independent organizations within the resident representative meeting in order to induce the participation of land owners or seek the measures for increasing the participation of tenants by providing them with official information about projects.
Second, regarding ‘transparency’, there is a need to improve systems for the wider release of information, indicating there is a need to improve laws and systems for specifying the range of information release more clearly, which will eventually reduce the potential conflicts in the future through the provision of practical information. Furthermore there is a need to introduce e-voting system in the homepage to induce the participation of residents to prevent the decision making by the resident representative meeting behind the closed-doors, which will eventually reduce the potential conflicts in the future because the stake-holders will have a better understanding of the decisions which have been made via above systems.
Third, regarding ‘responsibility’, there is a need to specify the rights and responsibilities of land owners in the project agreements and to re-establish the roles of the resident representative meeting to increase the publicness of local communities regarding the redevelopment projects. Furthermore it is worthwhile to consider establishing an organization for conflict management in the local government so that the local government can play a major role in controlling conflicts.
Finally, the findings of this study suggest the implications as follows.
From the perspective of the conflict management, the government-led projects do not always ensure better conflict management, indicating it is not necessary that the public sector need to proceed with the entire procedure of projects. Thus it is essential to introduce new urban development systems that suits the public purposes which will accomplish the true local governance process ensuring ‘participation’, ‘transparency’ and ‘responsibility’ by seeking a fundamental change of the redevelopment systems in the fast-paced social environment.
Key words: conflict management, local governance, redevelopment
Student ID: 2012-22791