Will Yongsan Park’s gates open? Ruling-party bills to use land for housing flood in

While talks between the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Seoul over housing supply at Yongsan Park remain stalled, bills aimed at using part of the park for housing continue to be introduced. No meeting with Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon has been scheduled since Hong Ji-seon took office as land minister, and debate is growing as ruling-party lawmakers successively introduce bills allowing land to be excluded from the park and developed for housing.
According to the National Assembly’s legislative proceedings tracker on the 19th, Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers Kim Nam-geun and Park Min-gyu each introduced, as lead sponsors on the 15th, bills to partially amend the Special Act on the Creation of Yongsan Park. Both bills provide an exception allowing part of the main site of the Yongsan U.S. military base, which under current law must be developed as a park, to be used for housing supply. They differ, however, in how the land could be used and in the area limits.
Kim Nam-geun’s bill would allow the minister of land to exclude some land from the area designated for park development, following deliberation by the Yongsan Park Creation Promotion Committee, if the minister deems it necessary for a significant public interest such as housing stability. It would require the Ministry of Land to receive management responsibility for the excluded land, free of charge, from its existing managing authority and first consider pursuing a public housing project there. The bill sets no specific upper limit on the area that could be excluded.
Park Min-gyu’s bill would allow part of the main site to be used as land for housing development on the condition that the land is not sold. The area to be developed would be set by an enforcement decree and capped at half of the entire main site, with no restrictions on the types of housing supplied. Park pointed to the fact that the returned land is in central Seoul and offers convenient access to major business districts.
Earlier, Cha Gyu-geun, a lawmaker from the Rebuilding Korea Party, introduced a similar amendment bill on Aug. 26. That bill capped the area for housing development at 20% of the main site and limited the housing to public rental housing, profit-sharing homes for sale and land-leasehold homes for sale. The two more recent bills broaden the range of ways the land can be used.
Efforts by the Ministry of Land and Seoul to reconcile their positions have made no progress. At two meetings last August between former Minister Kim Yun-deok and Mayor Oh Se-hoon, they also failed to narrow their differences over using the main site of Yongsan Park for housing.
Mayor Oh reiterated his opposition during the National Assembly Public Administration and Security Committee’s audit of Seoul on the 15th, saying, “It takes at least three to four years, and possibly six to seven years, just to remediate soil contamination at Yongsan Park, making it impossible even to start construction under the current administration.” He says using the Tancheon Water Reclamation Center site instead of Yongsan Park is a realistic alternative.
Meanwhile, housing starts in the capital region this year are expected to fall short of the government’s initial target. According to housing supply review results released by the Ministry of Land on the 16th, at least 99,000 homes had begun construction in the capital region through the second week of October, about 37% of the annual target of 268,000. The government’s year-end forecast for housing starts is 218,000 to 235,000 homes, 33,000 to 50,000 below the original target.
[email protected] Choi Ga-young Reporter