In Seoul and other parts of the capital region, unused military land totals 1.5 million pyeong, prompting calls to actively use it for dwelling supply. An analysis said that if unused military land in Seoul were utilized, up to 5,058 households of dwellings could be additionally supplied.
On the 25th, Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Yong-gap of the Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee analyzed the "status of unused military land at the Ministry of National Defense" and found that, due to military unit transfer or disbandment and redeployment, unused military land that the military is not using now or does not plan to use numbered 3,546 nationwide. By area, it was 3,121,800 pyeong (10.32 million square meters), which is 3.6 times the size of Yeouido.
Among these, unused military sites located in the capital region, including Seoul, Incheon, and Gyeonggi, numbered 1,872, and by area totaled 1,494,350 pyeong (4.94 million square meters).
In particular, in Seoul, where new public housing site supply is difficult due to a lack of developable land in the urban core, there were a total of 53 unused military sites—Seocho District 12 (92,100 square meters), Dobong District 26 (44,000 square meters), Yangcheon District 12 (7,000 square meters), and Nowon District 3 (3,000 square meters)—amounting to about 44,165 pyeong (146,100 square meters).
If the Ministry of National Defense entrusts development of the unused military land it currently holds and uses it to supply high-quality dwellings needed by households without homes, it is estimated that up to 5,058 households of dwellings could be supplied in the Seoul area.
Already, the Ministry of National Defense is pushing projects using such unused military land and military housing, together with the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH): Dongjak District, Capital Defense Command military site entrusted development project (556 households); Gwanak District, Namhyeon-dong, Namtaeryeong military housing reconstruction project (770 households); Yeongdeungpo District, Daebang-dong military housing entrusted development project (1,326 households); and Nowon District, Gongneung-dong military housing entrusted development project (294 households).
The public sale dwellings at the Capital Defense Command site in Dongjak District, promoted through the "low-utilization military site mixed-use development plan" approved by the government in Jul. 2020, were developed by a method in which the Ministry of National Defense provided the land to LH free of charge. As no site acquisition cost occurred, they were sold last Oct. at an average of 952.02 million won, about 500 million won cheaper than surrounding market prices.
Park said, "Unused military land owned by the Ministry of National Defense in the urban core has the potential to supply high-quality dwellings at low cost," adding, "The government should actively use unused military land as a means to supply dwellings affordably, rather than selling it to the private sector."