This study aims to reinterpret floor impact noise in multi-family housing as an environmental impact assessment issue and to propose institutional improvements by analyzing the limitations of Korea’s post-verification system and comparing it with international building acoustic standards. Floor impact noise has generally been treated as a private dispute between residents in Korea.
However, it is closely associated with building structure, construction quality, indoor environmental quality, residential health, and social conflict. Therefore, it should be regarded as a living environmental factor that can be addressed through the environmental impact assessment framework.
This study consists of five analytical components: a review of the Korean legal framework related to floor impact noise; an examination of the legislative petition on inter-floor noise management as a policy alternative; an analysis of post-verification performance test results from 2023 to 2025; a review of the Board of Audit and Inspection’s audit report on apartment inter-floor noise reduction systems; and a comparative analysis of international building acoustic standards and their distinctive implications for the Korean system.
The results show that Korea’s current post-verification system has limitations in representing unitlevel acoustic performance because it relies on a small number of sampled dwelling units. In the performance test data reviewed in this study, only 38 units out of 1,530 units were tested, and six out of nineteen apartment complexes failed to meet the required performance level. This indicates that a sampling-based system may not sufficiently identify performance deviations caused by structural type, floor composition, construction quality, or dwelling-unit layout.
International cases show that floor impact noise is generally managed as a matter of building acoustic performance, indoor environmental quality, and consumer protection, rather than merely as a postoccupancy nuisance complaint. European systems tend to combine design-stage prediction, constructionstage quality control, field measurement, and performance classification. The United States regulates minimum acoustic performance through building codes, while Japan uses housing performance indication systems. Hong Kong recommends specific field performance levels and the use of resilient floor systems. These cases suggest that Korea needs to shift from a dispute-resolution-centered approach to a life-cycle management system.
This study proposes that floor impact noise should be considered as a supplementary review element in the living environment sector of environmental impact assessment for large-scale multi-family housing developments, urban redevelopment projects, and public housing projects. Rather than introducing a separate regulatory standard duplicating the Housing Act, the assessment should focus on performance assurance plans, pre-occupancy verification plans, disclosure of measurement results, and post-occupancy monitoring.