지역주택기금의 조성과 운용에 관한 탐색적 연구

An Explorative Study on the Establishment and Management of Regional Housing Fund: Cases of the US and the UK

In spite of the common census that local and regional municipalities are more efficient and immediate in response to the extremely diversified and localized housing demand than the central government, their lack of available revenue sources has dissuaded them from initiating or executing their own customized housing policies. The purpose of this study is to investigate the cases of the US and the UK concerning the Regional Housing Fund, an effective way to reinforce the financial bases for municipalities decentralized housing policies, and then suggest the policy implication and practical schemes applicable to the domestic policy environments, specifically focusing on municipalities revenue sources. In contrast to the sharply shrinking role of the federal government in housing policy, the state governments in the US have increased their initiatives with the help of the so-called regional trust fund, of which main use covers home purchase supports and affordable rent assistance. On the contrary, a striking feature of the UK housing governance is that the central government plays a leading role in financing and distributing the regional housing fund among the regions, though it has also experienced the same decentralization of authority to drive the housing policy toward the municipalities. Regional Housing Board in each region is the core institutional entity to handle housing policies with its regional housing statements and invest the fund in its jurisdiction. In addition to the possibility of the grants and sponsorship by the government, our study suggests that, in Korea, the Regional Housing Fund to warrant the sustainability of municipalities housing policies be propped up by the various municipal endogenous resources including municipal taxes, e.g. property tax, acquisition tax, regional resource and facility tax, etc, as well as other charges upon their public services. On the grounds of less volatility and adequate scale of revenue amount, the right to collect the capital gain tax should be considered to be transferred to the municipalities. The inauguration of the regional housing and environment tax system can also be taken into account as one of the stable resources to finance the Regional Housing Fund.