Check solar housing setbacks before agreeing to a site lease
This calculator helps landowners review whether an ordinary housing setback applies to a proposed solar installation under Korean 2026 rules.
Use it when considering a solar developer’s lease offer for inherited farmland or forest land, or before spending money on a project of your own.
It brings building distances, building counts and unconfirmed facts into one review so that the presence of a nearby house does not become an unsupported reason either to abandon a proposal or to assume approval.
The result concerns the ordinary housing setback only.
A result of ‘not applicable’ does not establish eligibility for electricity business approval or a development-activity permit.
Land-use restrictions, farmland or forest conversion, disaster prevention, landscape review, drainage, road access and grid connection remain separate questions.
The useful decision point
Prepare a review before signing a long lease, paying a deposit or commissioning detailed design work.
Keep the grounds for excluding each building and the date on which the ordinance was checked, then compare the developer’s explanation with the documents during a municipal pre-application consultation.
The 18 September 2026 commencement and application date
Article 27-3 of Korea’s Renewable Energy Development, Utilization and Dissemination Promotion Act took effect on 2026-09-18.
Article 3 of the Addenda to Act No 21462 applies the new development-permit provisions to applications made after the legislation comes into force.
Enter the actual date of the development-activity permit application rather than the lease date, electricity business approval date, land acquisition date or the day on which you use this calculator.
New applications
The calculator compares new applications dated from 2026-09-18 through the end of 2026 with the verified rules.
If you use a planned application date, recheck the law and ordinance when the application is actually submitted.
Applications requiring a separate applicability review
Applications before 2026-09-18, amendment applications, an unknown application type and applications in 2027 or later remain pending.
Give the authority the filing history to establish whether a resubmission or amendment falls under the new rules.
Official source verification was completed on 2026-11-08.
A later planned filing date is a preliminary review using the presently verified provisions.
The ordinance-check date records when the relevant version was confirmed; it does not replace the statutory application date or determine which historical ordinance applies.
Separate designated areas from equipment exemptions
Article 27-3(1) restricts the use of setback requirements except in the listed situations, while paragraph (2) permits setbacks within standards set by the Enforcement Decree.
Designated areas such as heritage-related zones and ecological or landscape conservation areas require a separate review.
The calculator checks the area first so that an equipment exemption from the ordinary housing rule is not mistaken for an exemption from every location restriction.
- Historical and cultural environment preservation areas, cultural heritage protection zones, ecological and landscape conservation areas, designated tourist sites or complexes and natural settlement districts require separate checks of the applicable restrictions.
- Rooftop solar, legally qualifying self-consumption solar and resident-participation facilities under Article 27-2 may qualify for the exemption from the paragraph (2) setback.
- Selecting an equipment category alone does not confirm eligibility: the relevant legal conditions must also be checked.
Does rooftop solar remove every location restriction?
The paragraph (3) exemption concerns the setback under paragraph (2).
It does not establish that all separate restrictions in designated areas disappear, so the calculator gives the designated-area review priority over equipment exemptions.
A resident consent form also does not, by itself, establish a legally qualifying resident-participation facility.
Inputs and the documents behind them
Leave facts unconfirmed until they have been checked.
A blank number is unknown rather than zero, and an empty building list does not prove that no houses exist unless the relevant surrounding area has been completely surveyed.
Anonymous labels such as ‘House A’ or ‘Apartment building B’ are sufficient for keeping track of individual buildings; you do not need residents’ names or full addresses in the review.
Application, area and equipment
Prepare the filing date and application type, land-use records identifying designated areas, the installation location and the electrical equipment’s purpose.
Confirm the actual rooftop arrangement and legal exemption conditions instead of relying on a general description that panels will be installed above a building.
Ordinance and building survey
Record the ordinance name, provision and check date, the housing setback and building threshold, measured external-wall distances, building-register status and residence-registration evidence for the year before the filing date.
Obtain information about other people’s registration only through lawful procedures and appropriate authority.
Choose ‘no ordinary housing provision’ only when the absence of an applicable rule has been confirmed.
Failure to find an ordinance is an unconfirmed situation rather than evidence that no rule exists.
Keep the confirmation reference and date, and ask the municipal department which version applies if an old information sheet conflicts with a newer ordinance.
The five-house threshold counts buildings, not households
Article 27-3(2)(1) of the Enforcement Decree sets a minimum ordinance threshold of five houses.
Article 5 of the measurement notice counts one detached-house building or one apartment building as one unit for this purpose.
An apartment building containing many households is therefore entered once, while several separate residential buildings on the same parcel require separate building records.
Enter each qualifying residential building on one row only.
Do not count the same building twice because it appears in both a road-side survey and a village-side survey.
Where an office, warehouse or farm building has an uncertain residential classification, check its status as housing under the Housing Act and the relevant records rather than deciding from its appearance alone.
Detached and apartment building example
Three detached-house buildings and one apartment building make four units if all four qualify.
The number of households in the apartment building does not turn that count into five or more.
Because four and five buildings lie on opposite sides of a five-unit threshold, identifying the buildings and removing duplicates matter as much as measuring their distances.
When vacancy, demolition or register cancellation excludes a building
Article 4 of the notice excludes a house when no household was registered at that address at any time during the entire year immediately preceding the development-permit application date.
A house that appears empty today, or whose occupants are temporarily elsewhere, does not automatically satisfy that test.
Distinguish an assumption based on local knowledge from a fact established through the appropriate records.
No registered household throughout the preceding year
Select this exclusion only after confirming the complete one-year period before the application date.
A recent move-out, physical vacancy or the owner’s unsupported explanation is insufficient to establish the stated condition.
Demolished or cancelled in the building register
A building recorded as demolished or cancelled in the building register is also excluded.
Planned demolition, a damaged roof or an unmanaged condition is not a substitute for the specified register entry.
One confirmed exclusion is sufficient to remove that building from the qualifying count.
An assertion that a structure is unpermitted or unregistered is not automatically the same as an exclusion listed in Article 4, and the calculator does not exclude a house solely on that basis.
Ask the authority to resolve uncertain housing status or conflicting documents before changing the input.
Measure from the project boundary to the external wall
Article 8 of the notice identifies the house’s external wall as its measurement boundary.
The measurement does not start at the panel centre, inverter, parcel centre or a representative point for the house’s address.
Enter the shortest straight horizontal distance between the actual project-site boundary for the development-permit application and the house’s external wall.
If the application site differs from the entire parcel you own, establish which boundary was measured first.
Article 5 includes a house when part of its boundary is within the setback range.
Measuring to a single map marker can miss a closer wall or projection.
A walking route, access-road distance or distance along a slope cannot replace the shortest horizontal measurement.
A house at exactly 200 m
The calculator conservatively includes a distance equal to the limit.
At a 200 m limit, a house at 200 m is included and a house at 200.000001 m is outside.
This calculation convention protects against overlooking a boundary case; confirm the ordinance wording, measurement precision and boundary interpretation with the authority for the actual application.
The 200 m / five-building screen and a confirmed ordinance
The Enforcement Decree permits an ordinance to set an ordinary solar housing setback within a radius of 200 m from the project boundary, with a building-count threshold of at least five.
This does not mean every municipality necessarily applies exactly 200 m and five buildings.
If a confirmed applicable ordinance specifies 100 m and six buildings, enter those values and retain the provision and check date.
Screening before ordinance confirmation
The 200 m and five-building defaults provide a conservative national-envelope screen.
Outside designated areas, a complete survey with fewer than five possible qualifying buildings within 200 m can indicate that the ordinary housing setback does not apply.
Five or more calls for an ordinance check
Five or more buildings within 200 m does not produce an automatic permit rejection when the ordinance is unconfirmed.
Confirm the actual distance, building threshold or absence of an applicable provision, then calculate again.
A distance above 200 m or a threshold below five is rejected as outside the supported ordinary housing rule.
If an older ordinance still shows a larger distance, or an explanation mixes this rule with a designated-area restriction, ask the department to establish the interaction of the new law and your filing date rather than assuming the old rule’s legal effect.
The calculator does not retrieve all municipal ordinances or choose one automatically from a parcel identifier.
How qualifying counts and distance differences are calculated
After selecting comparison distance D and threshold H, the calculator counts qualifying buildings whose shortest distance d is less than or equal to D; call that count n.
Under a confirmed ordinance, n ≥ H produces an ‘applies’ result for the ordinary housing setback.
A smaller known count does not establish non-application when the survey is incomplete or relevant residence-registration, building-register or distance information remains unknown.
Buildings that must move outside the comparison range
k = n − H + 1
With six qualifying buildings and a threshold of five, at least two buildings must be outside the range to leave four.
For an individual building, its distance must increase by more than D − d.
A building already at the limit needs an increase greater than 0 m: adding exactly zero does not exclude it.
For a hypothetical equal increase in all building distances, sort the in-range qualifying buildings from farthest to nearest and select the kth distance, d*.
A uniform increase greater than D − d* reduces the in-range count below the threshold under that assumption.
This reference is shown only after a complete survey without uncertain buildings; it is not an optimal two-dimensional boundary design using actual site coordinates.
Fictional example: reducing six qualifying buildings to four
Assume a new ground-mounted solar application dated 2026-11-08, no designated area, a confirmed 200 m / five-building ordinance and a complete surrounding survey.
The six qualifying buildings are listed below, with an additional building at 60 m confirmed to have no registered household throughout the preceding year and another at 70 m recorded as demolished.
Those two are excluded, leaving six qualifying buildings rather than eight, and at least two qualifying buildings must be outside the range to fall below the threshold.
Fictional housing distances and the strict distance-increase requirement for exclusion from a 200 m range| Qualifying building | Current distance | Required increase |
|---|
| House A | 50 m | More than 150 m |
| House B | 80 m | More than 120 m |
| House C | 120 m | More than 80 m |
| House D | 160 m | More than 40 m |
| House E | 190 m | More than 10 m |
| House F | 200 m | More than 0 m |
The uniform increase must be greater than 10 m
The descending distances are 200 m, 190 m, 160 m, 120 m, 80 m and 50 m; the second distance is 190 m.
Because 200 − 190 = 10, the hypothetical equal increase must exceed 10 m.
At exactly 10 m, the house previously at 190 m remains at the 200 m boundary and five buildings are still included; an increase of 10.000001 m leaves four.
Do not rewrite this result as an instruction to retreat the actual site boundary by 10 m.
Where houses lie in different directions or the boundary changes direction, moving one boundary segment does not increase every shortest distance by the same amount.
A survey and design using actual boundary coordinates are needed to establish a feasible new boundary and the remaining installation area.
Step-by-step use and saving a review
- Enter the actual filing date and new or amendment application type, then establish designated-area status from the relevant land-use records.
- Select the equipment type and confirm its legal exemption conditions where applicable; leave unverified facts unknown.
- Choose the national-envelope screen or a confirmed ordinance, recording the reference, check date, distance and building threshold.
- Add one row per residential building with the shortest horizontal external-wall distance, residence-registration status and building-register status, removing duplicates.
- Mark the survey complete only after checking every house in the comparison area, then review the confirmed count, possible maximum and exclusions.
- Save a TXT review with inputs and pending items, discuss it with the municipality and surveyor, and recalculate after confirming the missing facts.
The fictional example explains the form and its strict boundary comparison.
Its ordinance and confirmation assumptions do not document the rules for an actual municipality and should not be used as a contract or consultation conclusion.
Preparation checkboxes help organize work; ticking a box does not itself verify the underlying facts.
Retain the application date, ordinance and check date, individual building inputs, exclusion or unknown reasons and distance-increase assumptions in the TXT review.
Sharing the complete review avoids losing material conditions, such as an incomplete survey or a limited exemption, when a single result number is copied elsewhere.
Using the result for a lease offer, inherited land or your own project
A developer says the proposed lease site can be approved
Request the surveyed boundary and housing list, then check omissions, duplicates, vacancy-exclusion evidence and the applicable ordinance.
Use the review to discuss deposit refunds, design and survey costs, and termination conditions if approval fails instead of relying solely on a non-application result.
Inherited land was set aside because of an old restriction
Check whether previously quoted house or road distances still apply to a new application under the current legislation and ordinance.
Establish designated-area status first, then use the ordinary housing screen to prepare a pre-application consultation with the development-permit department.
The landowner wants to build solar directly
A count close to the threshold can identify why a boundary-adjustment discussion is useful before detailed surveying.
Recalculate remaining installation space and financial returns using a real design, together with conversion procedures, grid connection, restoration costs and the project’s other conditions.
Reading the status and understanding the limits
- Applies: confirmed qualifying houses within a confirmed ordinance’s distance meet or exceed its threshold; this does not determine the complete permit outcome or any challenge to a decision.
- Not applicable: the ordinary housing rule does not apply on the confirmed facts, subject to the complete survey, established building information and absence of a designated-area issue.
- Exempt: the selected equipment’s confirmed legal qualification exempts it from the ordinary housing setback, without removing unrelated permit requirements or designated-area restrictions.
- Separate review or pending: a designated area, the application’s legal treatment, ordinance information or building facts require confirmation beyond a numerical comparison.
The confirmed count includes qualifying in-range buildings established by the entered facts.
The possible maximum also includes uncertain entered buildings that might qualify; it is not an estimate of additional houses in areas that have not been surveyed.
A low count with an incomplete survey is therefore insufficient to establish non-application.
The calculator does not determine wind-power setbacks, road requirements, restrictions concerning other facilities, farmland or forest conversion, environmental assessment, available grid capacity, solar returns or land value.
Approximate map distances and explanations from interested parties can support a consultation, but the actual application needs the relevant law, ordinance and survey records confirmed with the responsible authority.
Frequently asked questions
Do four houses mean the project will receive approval?
Outside designated areas, a complete survey and confirmed building facts can support non-application under the 200 m / five-building national-envelope screen, but that result does not establish compliance with farmland or forest conversion, landscape, disaster-prevention or other permit requirements.
Do five houses within 200 m always prevent approval?
The unconfirmed-ordinance defaults are a conservative screen, so the actual ordinance distance, threshold or absence of a provision must be checked, and even an applies result under a confirmed ordinance does not determine the entire permit outcome.
Does an apartment building with 50 households count as 50 houses?
Article 5 counts one detached-house or apartment building as one unit, so enter that building once and record separate buildings individually even when they belong to the same apartment complex.
Can a house be excluded just because it is empty now?
The required fact is the continuous absence of any household registered at that address throughout the year immediately preceding the application date, so current physical vacancy alone is insufficient and unverified information should remain unknown.
Are unpermitted buildings or houses awaiting demolition excluded automatically?
Those descriptions are not automatically the Article 4 exclusions for a confirmed full year without registered households or demolition or cancellation recorded in the building register, so housing classification and the actual register status require confirmation.
Are rooftop solar and projects with residents’ consent always exempt?
The legal rooftop, self-consumption or resident-participation conditions must be established for the paragraph (2) exemption, a consent form alone does not establish statutory resident participation, and separate designated-area restrictions still need review.
Does a required increase of more than 10 m mean retreating the site by 10 m?
It is a hypothetical equal increase in all shortest housing distances, with a strict boundary that exactly 10 m may not clear, so an actual feasible boundary, remaining installation area and distances to houses in different directions require surveying and design using coordinates.
Can I use the result for an old application or a 2027 filing?
Applications before 2026-09-18 and amendment applications require a separate check of the Addenda, while applications in 2027 or later are outside the verified 2026 rule scope, so the calculator keeps those decisions pending and calls for updated law and ordinance checks.
Official sources and updates
The Korean law API and official notice attachment were checked on 2026-11-08.
The Act, Enforcement Decree provisions and notice used here take effect on 2026-09-18, while the municipal ordinance and actual application and building facts must be confirmed separately.
This English guide uses Korean law and does not describe setback rules for another jurisdiction.
- Renewable Energy Development, Utilization and Dissemination Promotion Act, Article 27-3 and Addenda Article 3 to Act No 21462 — promulgated 2026-03-17; limitations, designated areas, ordinary-rule exemptions and application timing.
- Enforcement Decree, Article 27-3 — Presidential Decree No 36586, promulgated 2026-08-18; tourist sites, natural settlement districts and the solar 200 m / minimum five-building standard.
- Notice on the Calculation of Renewable Energy Facility Setback Distances — Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment Notice 2026-235, Articles 3–5 and 8, enacted and effective 2026-09-18.
- Official notice PDF — housing definitions, exclusions, building-based counts and external-wall measurement.
Recheck national standards after legislation or notice amendments, and update the inputs when the ordinance, application, project boundary or housing registration facts change.
Designated areas, amendment applications and the interaction with older ordinances particularly require confirmation from the relevant authority.
Turn the figures into a pre-application consultation
Enter the filing date, ordinance reference and building-by-building facts, then identify any pending items.
Take the TXT review to the development-permit department before settling the survey scope and approval-dependent contract terms, so that spending decisions rest on confirmed conditions.
Continue with the development-permit and environmental-assessment threshold review and the agrivoltaic installation versus site-lease income comparison within their respective scopes.
Setback and financial results answer different questions, and a decision to proceed should also consider the verified approvals and contract terms.