In the wake of the recent outbreak of logistics center fires such as the Icheon logistics center, the Building Act was amended on October 19, 2021 (the “Amendment”) to allow fire prevention measures and requirements for large-scale warehouse facilities to be implemented through the Ordinance of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (the “MOLIT”). The Amendment will come into effect from April 20, 2022.
As a follow to the Amendment, on January 14, 2022, the MOLIT made a legislative announcement for the amendment of the Enforcement Decree of the Building Act and the Rules on the Standards for Escape and Fire-poof structures of Buildings, etc. (collectively, the “Legislative Proposals”).
The Legislative Proposals provide that (i) storage facilities for goods shall be excluded from the scope of relaxed standards for fire compartments, and the warehouses which are either not subject to the application of the standards for fire compartments or are applied with relaxed standards shall be subject to separate supplementary measures (Enforcement Decree), and (ii) as a supplementary measure required for excluded or relaxed cases, in the case of sprinklers or openings, a facility is required to install measures to prevent fire spread by forming a water film (Ministerial Ordinance).
The Legislative Proposals will come into force on April 20, 2022, in time for the effective date of the Amendment, and will start to apply to construction permit applications filed after the effective date. The deadline to file public comments on the Legislative Proposals is February 23, 2022.
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