Former U.S. Army Base Usage Can be Changed Without Agreement of Defense Minister

The Korean government has decided that the usage of sites previously occupied by the American army handed back to Korea due to the U.S Forces Korea (USFK) realignment plan, can be changed without an agreement with the minister of National Defense.

The USFK support planning team under the office for Government Policy Coordination revealed on July 4, “We intended to grant the right of agreement of the site usage change to the defense minister in order to prevent a local government from changing the usage of those sites at its discretion. However, local governments are protesting, arguing it infringes on their urban planning rights.

In the initial draft of the “special bill made for USFK base realignment assistance,” published by the ministry of National Defense, it says

“If the head of a local government desires to alter the urban planning of a site previously occupied by the USFK but returned, he/she needs to have the agreement of the Minister of National Defense.”

The Korean Government decided to exclude this clause from the bill. The USFK project planning team also bowed to add a clause that all the former USFK base sites should be sold to local governments, preventing them from being sold to the private sector.

Young-Hae Choi yhchoi65@donga.com