“Today’s topics on Cities in Japan 008”
Re-redevelopment —reactivation of old stock constructed by Urban Redevelopment Project Since the Urban Redevelopment Act came into effect in 1969, nearly 50 years have passed and there are some needs of re-redevelopment in the area which had once already been developed by legislated schemes such as the Urban Redevelopment Project.
According to the published data by the Japan Business Federation, we have social stocks that needs to be re-redeveloped such as:
1) Blocks/sites developed as the urban redevelopment projects more than 30 years ago, based on the Urban Redevelopment Act (established in 1969);
2) Blocks/sites developed as the disaster preventing building project based on the Disaster Prevention Building Block Act (established in 1961, abolished in 1969); and
3) Blocks/sites developed as the Urban reconstruction project based on the Law on remodeling urban areas concerning the improvement of public facilities (established in 1961, abolished in 1969) It is estimated that there are approximately 360 districts (approximately 860 in number of buildings) nationwide, that falls under the above 1) to 3).
The data also pointed out that, in these districts:
1) Many buildings are close to the expiration date of the building’s life (for example, steel frame reinforced concrete building 40 to 47 years, heavy steel frame construction 35 years);
2) The buildings are becoming sluggish, obsolete, and outmoded, which is causing the withdrawals of key tenants. This causes the renewal rate to decline and the vacancy rates to increase. As a result, the activity of the city/area is concerned to stagnate;
3) Having experienced the Great East Japan Earthquake, and as the awareness for earthquake-resistant construction and renewal of the buildings are increasing, ensuring the safety and durability of existing large-scale aged buildings from a disaster prevention viewpoint is an urgent issue; At the same time, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation, is regarding “Stock recycling of buildings constructed by Urban Redevelopment Project” as an important issue. In order to keep the vitality of rural areas, in addition to proper maintenance of existing stock of those buildings constructed by the projects, they have started to consider the necessity of “reformation and conversion of the buildings and the implementation of Urban Redevelopment Project to sites including some areas where the Urban Redevelopment Project had already been implemented in the past.”
This is the eighth and final issue of our series: “Today’s Topics on Cities in Japan.” In this series, I have reviewed the various concepts related to sustainable development, the measures to utilize existing social capitals and stocks, and etc. I would like to come back to these contributions from the urban planning perspective someday.
