주택정책의 민간화와 지방화를 앞당기자

Need for Localizing Housing Policies and Market Deregulation

&nbsp;&nbsp;주택이라는 상품은 근본적으로 국지성, 지역성을 가진다. 따라서 주택시장은 국지시장이며 일반적으로 가구의 일일 행동반경 중심으로 형성된다. 국가중심의 획일화된 중앙집권적인 주택정책은 이와 같은 국지성과 하위시장의 특성을 반영하기 어렵다.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;향후의 주택정책은 민간화와 지방화를 지향해야 할 필요가 있다. 민간부문은 주택생산과 공급능력을 충분히 갖추고 있으며 우리나라 자본시장도 주택부문이 필요로 하는 자금을 언제나 신축적이고 효율적으로 공급할 수 있는 여력을 갖추고 있다. 또한 주택시장의 선진화와 투명화를 위한 다양한 제도 개선이 이루어지고 있다. 이제 앞으로 남은 과제는 어떻게 시장을 모니터링해서 시장의 안정을 기할 수 있는 정책과 시책을 시의 적절하게 구사하느냐 하는 것이다. 아울러 주택정책을 광역자치단체 중심으로 기획하고 집행할 수 있도록 정책수립과 집행권한을 위임할 때가 되었다. 지방중심의 주택정책이 지방여건에 맞고 지역주민의 주거복지를 우선하는 정책을 보다 효과적이고 성공적으로 추진할 수 있기 때문이다.

&nbsp;&nbsp;Housing policies in Korea have been dictated by the national government, emphasizing primarily on government-initiated and supply oriented new construction in the mass. Equally serious is the fact that they are construed as subservient to the national economic growth policy. In fact, they have traditionally served as major vehicle to raise GDP. Accordingly, local housing issues and region-specific housing problems are often ignored or neglected when policies are drafted at the national level. And homebuilders simply act as &quot;servitude&quot; to carry out the government&quot;s massive construction goal.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Naturally the housing market is heavily regulated and controlled to the extent that the private sector has little freedom to excercise in order to initiate and create more livable residential environment. Meanwhile, such problems as poor quality housing, low income housing and demand-supply mismatch are aggravating in local housing markets. These markets are seriously distorted, resulting in undesirable effects including housing speculation, unbalanced mix of housing types and size distribution, extreme polarization of housing prices. <BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Korea&quot;s housing markets vary widely in size, location and characteristics of each, suggesting that any nationally designed uniform and single policy instrument would not work. Besides some of them are large and sophisticated enough to be controlled by the national government. Thus, the best alternative is to let the separate local market take its own course and adequately allocate housing resources through price mechanism. The role of the national government then is to facilitate local markets with various resources, financial and otherwise and to help the housing poor with subsidies and supplements who can&quot;t otherwise get an access to decent housing.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;For this reason alone housing policies must be locally formulated and executed in a close coordination with such related policies as welfare, health, education and community development. And equally important is to minimize government intervention so that the private sector can act more freely to meet the rapidly changing housing demand.