By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter

Mayor of Seoul Oh Se-hoon has failed to effectively cope with soaring rent for houses and apartments and his stabilization plan is unlikely to fix the ``messy'' housing market, lawmakers said Tuesday.

During a National Assembly inspection of the Seoul City government, lawmakers called Oh's rental housing stabilization plan, unveiled in mid-September, ``short-sighted.''

``Those searching for rental housing are families whose bread-winners are in their 30s and they are looking for places with more than two bedrooms,'' said Rep. Lee Si-jong of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP).

``The Seoul City administration plans to build single-room apartments. There is a deep gap between what consumers are looking for and what the city authorities are going to do.''

The criticism came a month after the city government unveiled the stabilization plan to meet soaring demand for rental housing in Seoul.

The city authorities plan to build about 1,000 public housing and single room apartment blocks that have no parking lots in an effort to maximize the use of urban space, constructing 300,000 units in total over the next 10 years.

According to the city government and realtors, rising rental prices are the combined result of various factors.

As the economy has begun to claw its way out of recession, rents, which plummeted after the aftermath of the Wall Street-born financial meltdown hit the nation last year, have started going up.

Several urban redevelopment projects in northern parts of the metropolitan area also attracted the inflow of short-term credit with low interest rates ― basically speculative money.

Income earners, who are unable to buy their own house due to rising prices, choose to rent.

All these factors contributed to rising rental prices in the metropolitan area, city officials said.

Rental prices in Gangseo rose 13.2 percent this year from a year ago, followed by Mapo with 8.5 percent, Dongjak with 8.3 percent and Yangcheon with 7.4 percent.

Lee said reducing parking facilities in order to have more space to build housing would inevitably exacerbate parking problems and areas where single-room housing is packed are likely to become urban slums.

Rep. Huh Cheon of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) accused Mayor Oh of seeking what he called a quick fix when facing public outcry over soaring rent.

Huh called on Oh to reconsider the supply-oriented housing policy, saying the mayor needs to study the possible consequences of the stabilization plan first before implementing it.

Rep. Lee Yong-sup of the DP attributed the rising rent in part to President Lee Myung-bak's urban redevelopment plan.

He said the plan, implemented while Lee was serving as mayor of the capital, was mainly responsible for the housing market mess.

The DP lawmaker said low-income families who lived in areas designated as redevelopment sites were evicted and they have had no place to go as housing prices and rent have soared due to the property bubble.

hkang@koreatimes.co.kr