Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said on the 14th, "The government must fundamentally change the direction of its real estate policy. Right now it is effectively infringing on the public's freedom of residential transfer."
At a People Power Party floor countermeasures meeting at the National Assembly on the morning of the same day, Mayor Oh stated accordingly, saying, "The government must first fully reexamine its 'owner-occupation obsession policy' that is shaking the lease market and deepening the public's pain."
Mayor Oh criticized the 8-13 measures the government released the previous day, saying regulations that block redevelopment projects still remain. He also noted that a tax reform plan based on "residence" rather than "ownership" of dwellings is effectively a real estate tax hike.
Mayor Oh said, "Core regulations that block redevelopment projects—such as restrictions on transferring union member status, floor area ratio, and the ratio of rental dwellings in redevelopment—still remain," adding, "We need bold regulatory improvements that can raise profitability and speed."
He went on, "During Democratic Party Mayor Park Won-soon's tenure, redevelopment zones in 389 areas of Seoul were lifted, and from 2016 to 2022 there was not a single new designation for dwelling redevelopment," adding, "Even though the accumulated structural supply gap is returning each year as housing insecurity for citizens, some in the government and the ruling party remain trapped in the outdated notion that sees redevelopment as speculation."
Mayor Oh also said, "This time the government says it will block jeonse loans by judging speculation based only on an owner-occupation record," adding, "People have various circumstances, and we must first abandon the uniform idea of labeling the public as speculators based solely on whether they live in the home."
He added, "Cutting the deduction rate for single-home owners with long-term ownership and raising the tax burden because they do not live in their own home is effectively a real estate tax hike," saying, "Home prices have soared and housing insecurity has grown, yet they would even hand the bill to the public. The violent tax hike that shifts responsibility for policy failure onto the public must stop."