Land Compensation in Administrative Cities to Increase

The Officially Assessed Reference Land Price (OARLP) of Gongju-Yeongi area in Chungnam, the prospective site for a new administrative capital, has increased 6.59 percent for Gongju City and 6.70 percent for Yeongi County on average after a re-examination demanded by petitions.

The compensation offered by the government is expected to rise as the government determines the compensated price by taking into consideration the government-announced land price, the consumer price, and land price inflation when purchasing lands.

Of the 500,000 land parcels nationwide, the Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MCT) announced on April 19 that it would disclose the revised price of 1,281 parcels on April 20, following the review of 3,713 parcels petitioned for the OARLP (as of January 1, 2005).

In Yeongi County, 161 parcels were the subject of complaint filings among 1,660 reference parcels, and prices were adjusted in 145 cases. In Gongju City (3,770 reference parcels), 18 out of 25 complaints were accepted and their prices adjusted.

In particular, Yeongi County saw more than a seven-fold increase in the number of complaints, compared to last year’s 23 cases, owing to expectations for a relocation of the administrative capital.

As a result, the OARLP of Gongju City and Yeongi County rose 49.94 percent and 59.35 percent compared to the previous year, respectively.

The MCT plans to finalize and unveil on May 31 the Officially Assessed Individual Land Price (OAILP) of the country’s 27.5 million parcels, which will be estimated based on the final OARLP by city, county, and gu, an administrative district unit.

Sang-Rok Lee myzodan@donga.com