When Gyeonggi Province announced its latest revision of the “Standard Rules for Apartment Management,” officials framed it as meaningful progress. But residents across the province know the truth: the core problems — the clauses that have fueled years of conflict, mistrust and dysfunction in Korea’s apartment communities — remain untouched. The system, in other words, has not moved an inch.
More than half of the country lives in apartments. These buildings are the physical foundation of everyday life. Yet the very rules meant to keep these communities stable have, instead, pushed them into cycles of dispute. Key regulations were drafted without transparency; no one knows who authored them, no one has been held accountable, and no one has apologized for the chaos they caused.
Resident representatives can violate rules with little consequence. Election committees can mishandle procedures without oversight. And building managers often wield broad operational authority without clear lines of responsibility. What has emerged is not local self-governance but a distorted power structure that turns neighborhoods into battlegrounds.
When Conflict Erupts, the System Collapses
In theory, the management office should remain neutral. In practice, it often does the opposite. When disputes break out between resident councils and election committees, managers frequently choose sides — or become active participants in the conflict itself.
In one apartment complex in Pyeongtaek, infighting between local leaders dragged the entire community into litigation. In worse cases, managers draw residents into conflict to strengthen their own leverage, or local leaders manipulate managers for factional gain. No community can function under such a structure. Authority becomes privatized, responsibility evaporates, and the apartment becomes a terrain of perpetual crisis.
Community Library Directors Treated as “Invisible” — The Administration Erases the True Agents of Community Life
Support for community library managers— the staff members who handle daily operations — is funded only when there happens to be leftover budget. It is a “whenever the money is there” policy with no continuity or stability.
But the deeper problem lies in how community library directors— the people actually responsible for running the library and leading the community space — are treated.
For library directors, there is:
• no stipend,
• no compensation for their work,
• no recognized volunteer hours,
• no official channel to handle resident concerns,
• and no speaking rights at residents’ meetings — even when their attendance is requested.
In some apartment complexes, directors are treated as people who “exist but do not exist,” practically invisible.
Yet directors do not ask for compensation. They continue to serve quietly for the community despite receiving almost nothing in return. So what is the minimum level of respect they deserve?
A formal meeting with the governor — for Gyeonggi Province to hear directly from those who understand the apartment community best. Talking to just one clear-sighted library director would reveal far more about the root causes of apartment conflict — and possible solutions — than any number of committee reports.
The reality that the provincial government has not held a single official meeting with library directors for the past four years is a devastating reminder of how completely the administration has ignored the field. This is no longer mere incompetence; it borders on administrative abandonment.
The “Invisible” Library Managers of Korea’s Housing Blocks
Another blind spot is the treatment of small community library managers. Their role is vital: they mediate disputes, connect neighbors and often prevent conflicts before they erupt. Yet the system treats them as if they do not exist.
There is:
• no stipend,
• no activity compensation,
• no recognized volunteer hours,
• no formal channel to file resident concerns,
• no speaking rights at resident meetings — even when their presence is requested.
They are expected to serve, but denied the dignity of participation. They do not ask for financial reward. They ask for recognition — and for government to listen. A single conversation with an experienced library manager would reveal more about the actual sources of apartment conflict than any number of committee reports.
Yet for the past four years, the provincial government has not held a single official meeting with them. That silence is not mere neglect; it is administrative abandonment.
Parking Chaos Beside Empty Disabled Parking Spaces
Parking disputes are among the most common sources of resident conflict. In the complex where I have lived in Pyeongtaek for eight years, more than 60 percent of designated disabled parking spaces remain empty on most days, while residents fight nightly battles over parking shortages, double-parking and verbal altercations.
No one disputes the need for accessibility. But an inflexible decades-old rule has produced massive inefficiency and unnecessary conflict. A designated-spot system, like those used in many U.S. apartment complexes, would resolve most of this overnight. The current system is not compassion; it is policy failure — and it deserves accountability.
A Startling Reality: “During Lunch, Even Emergencies Must Wait”
Perhaps the most alarming example of systemic dysfunction comes from an apartment complex in Dongtan, Hwaseong. During the management office’s lunch break, staff refused to answer calls even as a resident remained trapped in a broken elevator for more than 40 minutes.
The problem wasn’t the unanswered phone. It was the revelation that the building’s entire emergency response system stops for lunch.
For elderly residents, pregnant women or those with claustrophobia, an elevator malfunction is not an inconvenience — it is a health emergency. Yet even after the incident, the management office treated the resident as if they were invisible. This is not mismanagement; it is structural collapse.
Residents Have Had Enough: Identify Who Wrote the Toxic Clauses
The time for polite suggestions is over.
For years, residents have suffered under regulations that no one claims ownership of. They endure the consequences, while the architects of these policies remain unknown. If reform is to begin, the province must reveal who drafted these harmful provisions, who approved them and who allowed them to stand for so long. Accountability is not vengeance. It is the first step toward restoring trust.
Residents no longer accept cosmetic amendments or superficial announcements of “revision.” Reform without accountability is deception.
The First Step: Replace the Rule-Making Committee
All roads lead back to one structural reality: the committee that creates and revises the apartment management rules is composed largely of individuals who do not understand — and have never experienced — the on-the-ground realities of apartment life.
These committees often reflect the province’s obsession with academic credentials, not community expertise. The result is predictable:
• People who have never witnessed the burdens of small community libraries
• People unfamiliar with the dysfunction of disabled parking allocations
• People with no firsthand experience of management office failures
• People who have never endured internal apartment disputes
These individuals decide how tens of millions of residents must live. The rules they create — detached from reality — return to residents as toxic mandates.
The path forward is clear:
1. Replace the entire Standard Rules Review Committee.
2. Rebuild it around people with real-world experience.
3. Redesign the system so that responsibility and authority are balanced, transparent and enforceable.
Apartments are not merely physical structures. They are communities, safety systems, social ecosystems — the fabric of everyday life. When the rules governing those spaces break, the community breaks with them.
This moment demands not patches but a reckoning; not polite adjustments but structural reform; not silence but accountability. Until the province confronts the architects of its own failures, Korea’s apartment communities will remain trapped in conflict, confusion and distrust. And residents will continue to pay the price.
