Seoul Greenbelt Housing Plan Rejected

The government’s plan to abolish the green belt in the second Segok district in Gangnam-gu and third Gangil district in Gangdong-gu, Seoul and build rental apartments was thwarted by the Central City Planning Committee (CCPC) who said the plan was inadequate. Since 2002, when the government decided to utilize green wedges to bring up the number of rental apartment units for average Koreans, it is the first time that the committee stopped the project, dealing a blow to the government’s project aimed at expanding rental apartment complexes.

The Ministry of Construction and Transportation said on Monday, “Three districts, Second Segok District in Gangnam-gu, Third Gangil District in Gangdong-gu and Second Cheonwang District in Guro-gu, were on the government’s application list as candidate designations for rental apartment complexes to the CCPC, but we were told that except for Cheonwang district, two of them were inadequate for the development.”

Following the committee’s decision, development process in Segok and Gangil districts will be suspended and they will remain as part of the green belt.

“The natural environment in the two districts is superb and since they are close to the planned Songpa new town area, if developed as rental apartment complexes, negative consequences like the phenomenon that adjacent cities are linked to become a larger city are expected,” said the committee. Gangnam-gu and Gangdong-gu offices and the residents nearby, which opposed the project in fear of falling existing apartment prices, might have affected the decision.

The Ministry asked Seoul city for alternative lands for the project and the city will secure similar size of lands within this year.

But the government’s plan to build 14,000 apartment units in five green belt zones designated as rental apartment complexes in Seoul by the end of the year will inevitably be disrupted.

“The problem occurs when the government sets the number of apartment units to build. It needs to buy and renovate old houses and use them, rather than constructing all new houses,” said Kim Hyun-a of Construction and Economy Research Institute of Korea, a research and review institute on major city planning whose president is appointed by the Minister of Construction and Transportation.

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