The Seoul Metropolitan Government is pushing to prevent people from living in semi-basement homes. The move follows the deaths of four family members at flooded semi-underground homes in southwestern Seoul a week ago when record downpours pounded the capital city. The city government saying it will no longer grant permits for semi-basement flats and that such existing housing will be converted to non-residential use over time. The measure ultimately goes in the right direction. However, the policy will likely make the lives of dwellers in such homes even harder if they are pushed out hastily without being provided with alternative places to live.
Last Wednesday, the Seoul city government announced it would no longer give new permits to build basement or semi-basement homes and phase out existing ones. City hall said it would give a grace period of up to 20 years for owners of existing basement houses and provide incentives, including remodeling subsidies, to convert them into non-residential spaces. However, conspicuous for its absence was a plan to rescue current residents from semi-underground homes, except for the renewed pledge to provide more rental houses.
It was not the city's first measure concerning semi-basement homes. Director Bong Joon-ho's “Parasite,” which won the Oscar award for best picture in 2020, drew film fans' attention globally to the squalid, flooded semi-basement flats, known as “banjiha” homes, featured in it. Following heavy rains and flooding in 2010, the city announced it would push for restrictions on building permits for semi-basement housing. But as it turned out last week, the reality was far more tragic than the movie.
Currently, 327,320 households live in semi-basement homes, and 96 percent of them are in the greater Seoul area. If the central and municipal governments fail to increase the rental housing supply drastically, support for semi-underground residents will deprive other residentially vulnerable people of their places. However, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration plans to supply only 100,000 public rental homes a year, far fewer than the 140,000 by the previous Moon Jae-in government. Conservative political leaders should be the last to talk about phasing out semi-basement homes as they kick away ladders for such residents to come up to the ground level.