Seoul’s Street Vendor-Only Building

This June, a rental building in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, will be open for street vendors to do business in. This is the first time ever that a commercial building has been constructed to accommodate street stalls.

A total of 86 street stalls among the 143 at Yeoksam-dong that were cleared in 2004 in an effort to clean up the streets are slated to move in first.

Restaurants and Farm Produce Stands-

Gangnam-gu had planned to remodel a three-story building with one story underground that the local government had secured, and open it for the use of street vendors last October. Yet safety concerns came up, and the government decided to build a new five-story building with two stories underground, which was why the construction was delayed.

The new building will be leased to street vendors, traditional food restaurants, and farm produce stores, which will move in first.

The Gangnam-gu government will rent stores in the building to street vendors for a fixed rental fee and management expenses. An official explained that the government will crack down on any transactions of title, saying, “The government will examine the value of their property and will not allow them to transfer their title.”

If the scheme turns out to be successful, Gangnam-gu plans to buy an additional building and bring 440 more stalls inside the building in the long-term.

To this end, the municipal government has spent a total of 15.3 billion won: 10.7 billion won for securing the building that it remodeled, and 4.6 billion for constructing the new building.

An official was opposed to the project, saying, “Street stalls are obviously illegal whether they are run by an individual or a firm. When the government builds a building for them to continue their businesses, the effort to tackle such illegal businesses will be undermined.”

Solutions-

As of last year, there were 13,715 unauthorized roadside stands in Seoul. This was up from 2004, reversing the downward trend of 18,454 in 2000, 14,540 in 2002, and 13,524 in 2004.

Jongno-gu cracks down on unauthorized street vendors on a regular basis but it is ineffective. Every time the government confiscates stalls, vendors resist and pay fines to get their stalls back. Then they continue their businesses.

He said that street vendors leave their food garbage on the street, which spoils the beauty of the city. It is essential to come up with schemes that will send street vendors out of the city where they can do their business on the street.

The Seoul city government provided Dongdaemoon Stadium in Jung-gu, for street vendors that had sat along the Cheonggye stream when the stream was under restoration.

Nine hundred street vendors are doing business in the stadium. The city government offers tap water, and vendors pay for electricity.

A city official said specially constructed street vendor buildings and space in the stadium are half-baked measures. When the city brings vendors inside the building, more unauthorized vendors will come out on the street to sell products.

In the U.S. and Europe, governments use a licensing system to restrict illegal street vendors. Street vendors can sell their products only on dates the governments set, and they have to pay taxes. City engineering experts suggest that Korea follow the lead of exemplary cases in other countries.

Tae-Hun Hwang beetlez@donga.com