Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) will begin an analysis on the Yongin public housing district, which is being developed as a 'semiconductor specialized new city.' The project aims to identify potential housing demand from semiconductor industry workers and others, calculate the supply scale by housing type and form, and prevent urban hollowing on weekends and nights by developing residential, cultural, and commercial functions in a mixed manner. LH plans to develop the Yongin new city as a workplace-residence-play city (a city where work, residence, and leisure can be enjoyed in one place) with a focus on demand rather than supply from the initial development stage.
According to LH on the 28th, the corporation recently commissioned a study on 'demand analysis and district revitalization plans for the Yongin development project.'
LH plans to supply 16,000 dwellings in the Yongin public housing district, developed as a semiconductor specialized new city. In total, 16,624 dwellings will be built in Yongin Pogok (3,800 dwellings), Yongin Central Park (4,729 dwellings), and Yongin Eonnam (5,447 dwellings), which are areas designated for private rental housing promotion.
An LH official noted, 'The four development project districts implemented by LH in Yongin are geographically separated from existing new city areas like Jeongja and Dongbaek, and each project district is fragmented geographically, making it essential to optimize demand in the workplace-residence-play sector, considering urban functionality connectivity, differentiation, self-sufficient function securing measures, and commercial vacancy rates.'
In this service, LH will analyze the scale and characteristics of the population likely to flow in according to the construction phase of semiconductor production facilities (fabs). It aims to derive not only the appropriate scale for apartments but also for quasi-dwellings such as officetels, considering the characteristics of the specialized industry workers in the semiconductor industry cluster along with the needs of new residents and existing residents.
In particular, LH will prepare strategies specialized in workplace-residence-play to improve the city's marketability. A city with self-sufficient functions can easily experience hollowing out on weekends or nights, so the plan is to seek ways to supplement functions such as residential, cultural, and commercial. It also aims to discover specialized functions by district, including areas for academies, food villages, and pop-up stores. LH also plans to attract anchor facilities such as corporations, universities, foreign educational institutions, international organizations, and hospitals to this area.
The reason LH is focusing the demand survey and urban revitalization strategy of the Yongin new city on workplace-residence-play, unlike existing new cities, is to accelerate the timing of urban revitalization. Existing new cities have often resulted in a decline in urban vitality and slower population influx without such strategies, leading some to become 'ghost towns.'
An LH official said, 'In the case of multi-family housing, which occupies most of the project area, there has been insufficient consideration of the characteristics and preferences of the resident population, as well as price competitiveness, which has limited early population settlement and revitalization by relying on demographic and housing distribution based on previous cases.'
LH plans to apply for the district plan approval for the Yongin-dong area among the Yongin new city being developed in December. Yongin Pogok is scheduled to apply for district plan approval in March next year. The Yongin Central Park and Eonnam districts are currently under development.