Seoul postpones Yeouido, Yongsan master plans
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon speaks during a press conference at Seoul City Hall to postpone his redevelopment plans for Yongsan and Yeouido, Sunday. / Yonhap
By Kim Hyun-bin
Seoul will postpone its master plans to redevelop Yeouido and Yongsan as housing prices continue to rise steeply, Mayor Park Won-soon said Sunday.
“I am worried the housing market has been showing signs of overheating,” Park said during an unscheduled press conference at City Hall.
“For resident stability, I fully agree with the government's stance that stabilizing the housing market should be the first and foremost step.
Housing prices in the Yeouido and Yongsan areas have been skyrocketing since the master plan was unveiled last month, with asking prices in the region jumping over 100 million won ($90,000) within a month.
On July 11, Park came up with the master plan to bring landscape changes to the country's financial hub of Yeouido and the Yongsan area, while he was visiting Singapore to attend an award ceremony for the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize. Seoul was this year's winner of the biennial prize.
The initial plan was to revamp Yeouido with a more cosmopolitan look by remodeling old apartments and constructing more parks and community centers by 2030. The plan would have allowed Yeouido, Gwanghwamun and bustling Gangnam-gu to construct high-rise buildings up to 50 stories.
Also under the plan, the rail connection between Seoul and Yongsan stations was to be reconstructed underground, while replacing it with a shopping center and a meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) complex on the ground level.
To help stabilize the housing market, Park plans to expand the supply of public housing.
Previously, the incumbent Seoul mayor, who was re-elected for his third term in office in June, pledged to supply an additional 240,000 public housing units in the capital within his current term.
“Currently, there are 270,000 public housing units, and with more efforts from the city government, public housing could take over 10 percent of the housing market in the capital,” Park said. “This will strengthen resident stability, and could have an effect in easing the real estate market.”
The mayor also said the city government will enhance cooperation with the government to increase transparency of transaction and displayed housing prices.
“The Seoul city government has been cooperating with the central government to stabilize the housing market and we plan to brainstorm all possible ways with the government to better counter the issue,” Park said.
“We will strengthen crackdown on illegal renovations and enforce a restitution of large-scale development gains to better stabilize the real estate market.”
To better counter the overheating property market, the city government plans to operate a real estate inspection team until the market is stabilized.