Surrounding environment is highly considered in choosing a house as the demand on resident type becomes diversified and the interest in residential environment grows higher because the recent economic growth and income enlargement bring about higher interest in the quality of housing as a living space.
For this reason, there is a growing need for alternative policies to improve the level of residential environment quality by understanding influential factors of residential environment of multi-family housing residence.
The goal of this study is to suggest implications and improvements of multi-family housing policies by investigating precedent factors that have an effect on residential satisfaction of multi-family housing dwellers and to analyze differences in residential satisfaction depending on building and utilization regulations according to the respective sample areas.
As for areal extent of the study, New Town, Seogok Site, Seoshin Site, Ahjung Site among newly-developed residential areas in Jeonju, one of the representative local small and medium cities, were selected, and 458 copies of sample questionnaire were collected by means of one-to-one interview method targeting multi-family housing dwellers in newly-developed residential areas to empirically analyze the residential satisfaction factors of multi-family housing dwellers in the newly-developed residential area and the residential satisfaction of respective sample areas.
The basic data for the study was organized and analyzed through literature study on the related data. The research model for empirical analysis was designed based on the analyzed data, and the hypothesis was set up. SPSS 12.0 and AMOS 5.0 were used for a basic statistical analysis for the validation of research model and a factor analysis for the evaluation of the reliability of questionnaire.
The causal relationships in the research model were validated by structural equation model, of which parameter difference between groups moderator effect analysis was used to examine whether the respective sample area is a moderator in the relationship of the characteristics of multi-family housing area and the residential satisfaction.
Regarding the analysis results, it was found that convenience, surrounding environment, and economy among characteristics of residential environment of multi-family housing are precedent factors that have an effect on residential satisfaction. It was found that neighborship, parking environment, and school district are important factors of residential satisfaction for an apartment building and a country house, but they did not have an effect on residential satisfaction for multi-family housing.
As for the study result of examination on whether the respective sample area is a moderator in the relationship of the characteristics of multi-family housing area and the residential satisfaction, it was found that multi-family area is a moderator in the effect of parking environment, convenience, and economy on residential satisfaction.
Policy implications of this study are as follows.
Firstly, different from interests and approaches in policy for apartment housing, approaches should be adopted based on the comprehensive examination on the detailed building regulations including utilization of a building for the multi-family housing. A flexible district unit planning for residential area in the newly-developed residential area should be established based on the understanding of characteristics of environments and dwellers of each district unit.
Secondly, utilization of each block within single detached residential unit should be designated to solve problems of low residential satisfaction because of the scarcity of parking space resulted from the mixed land use of residential and commercial area and to mediate the decline of residential satisfaction resulted from the lack of amenities on account of the regulations of building use. Therefore, when planning district units, the first and second neighborhood living facility should be located only at their the designated blocks, and the other blocks should be used for residential area.
However, it is desirable to mitigate the limitation of establishing a facility that damages a pleasant residential environment by specifically marking it with disapproval use.
Thirdly, the development of community based on neighborship should be considered as one of the important factors for the improvement in standard of living of multi-family housing dwellers.