Covering the food & beverage industry, beauty, fashion, retail markets, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and related people and entities worldwide
Seoul mayor vows to lift regulation on building heights as part of reelecion campaign
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon speaks during a press conference at City Hall, April 12, commemorating the one-year anniversary of his latest term as mayor. Yonhap
By Ko Dong-hwan
Oh Se-hoon unveils vision for green, attractive urban spaces as he seeks reelection
By Ko Dong-hwan
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon unveiled his visions for city forestation, K-beauty brands and making city facilities friendlier to residents as he seeks reelection in the upcoming mayoral election on June 1.
Oh revealed his plans during a press conference at City Hall on April 12 to commemorate the one-year anniversary of his latest term as mayor.
Oh said that the city government has already begun sprucing up downtown streets by planting more vegetation under the city's urban development plan, with plans to continue upgrading streets in Yongsan District by the end of this year. His plan hit a note with President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's currently ongoing bid to relocate the presidential office to the defense ministry's headquarters in Yongsan District.
“Imagine looking at Seoul from one kilometer above and the view is filled with green,” Oh said. “I will deregulate limitations on building heights and maximize the floor-area ratio to make city spaces available for as much public use as possible. Then those spaces will be filled with urban forests.”
He said he aims for urban forests to cover at least 10 percent of the city. He mentioned that urban forests in London and New York City range from 21 percent to 24 percent of the total city area, respectively.
Another city government plan, Oh said, is developing beauty brands that promote the “K-lifestyle” to the world as a global standard for a healthy lifestyle. He said the project is essential to improving the city's global competitiveness. Dongdaemun Design Plaza will be the project's main base, the mayor said. The city government has begun investing in the project that will be allocated a budget of over 200 billion won ($161 million).
“Out of the four main axes that comprise the city's visions towards those in their 20s and 30s, the most important one is making the city feel romantic and attractive, and what completes that axis will be K-beauty,” Oh said.
Oh also promised that if he gets elected, he will transform unpleasant city facilities like incineration plants into something more appealing to the public so that people will welcome those facilities in their communities. The bid came as the city's four incineration plants are aging and need to be upgraded.
The mayor said the city will invest as much as needed to upgrade the existing waste treatment facilities so that they raise the quality of life in the city. He mentioned a memorial park in Wonji-dong in Seoul's Seocho District as a good example: it discarded a crematorium's conventional image that made local residents uncomfortable with odors and dust and instead turned it into a clean, more enjoyable gallery-like public space.
“I imagine people looking on at our city's upgraded waste treatment facilities with respect while dining in a fancy restaurant nearby, and showing them to their children to teach them how some of our city's most essential facilities look,” the mayor said. He added that the city's waste won't be a burden to other cities, as he seeks to handle waste disposal within Seoul.
The mayor also highlighted that the city will enable upward mobility for citizens through its welfare programs. He said the city's Safety Income project, an experimental project for improving the quality of living for low-income households in the city, has drawn attention from global experts in the fields of welfare, economic and social community. During the registration period for applicants that ended on April 8, some 34,000 households applied for 500 spots.
“We believe this project can propose an idea of an intricate social ladder for low-income earners in cities around the world, by helping them secure their incomes despite being in danger of losing jobs to artificial intelligence or robots in the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” Oh said.
He said the project will start showing results in two to three years. “I hope this project will become an income welfare system that will greatly contribute to rebuilding the social ladder on a global scale,” the mayor said.