Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) will break ground on 26,000 apartments this year through a public housing project with private participation (private-participation project). For idle sites in city centers such as Seongdae Baseball Stadium and Wirye office land, as well as third new towns including Namyangju Wangsuk, LH will release calls for private-participation projects within the year, as released in the Sept. 7 supply measures.
LH plans to create an environment for swift project execution by calculating appropriate construction costs and preparing financial products that utilize the Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG) and the housing & urban fund.
On the 12th, at the LH Southern Gyeonggi Regional Headquarters in Bundang-gu, Seongnam, LH held the "2026 LH private cooperation governance forum" and said it will push to break ground on 26,000 dwellings across 42 blocks nationwide through private-participation projects.
The private-participation project is a project jointly implemented by LH and private construction companies, supplying a variety of public dwellings by leveraging private-sector technology and brands.
Of the volume LH aims to start this year, 16,000 dwellings are among 10,000 dwellings across 17 blocks, including Bucheon Daejang, Seoul Seogye, and Suwon Wangsuk 2, for which the calls have been completed, and 18,000 dwellings across 27 blocks to be newly tendered. The new call volume includes Namyangju Wangsuk and Ansan Jangsang, as well as Suwon Dangsu, a district with a change of use. Idle sites in city centers, such as Seongdae Baseball Stadium and Wirye office land, are also scheduled to be called for within the year, with groundbreaking planned for next year. Under the government's Sept. 7 measures last year to expand dwelling supply, about 8,000 dwellings of this year's project volume will proceed under LH's direct implementation.
In step with the government's dwelling supply policy, LH will make it routine to split calls for private-participation projects into the first and second halves of the year. The first-half call in April targets the December groundbreaking volume (15,000 dwellings). The second-half call in October covers the June groundbreaking volume next year (8,000 dwellings).
To invigorate private-participation projects, LH will overhaul the cost estimation system for private operators and calculate appropriate construction costs. This year, private-operator project costs were raised by 6.9% from the previous year.
Financial support will also be strengthened. LH and HUG plan to finalize the "HUG guarantee product" in April so that the new financial support model, which was pursued as a pilot last year, can be fully applied.
In particular, to allow a variety of private operators to participate, LH plans to prepare packages by project size (large, medium, small) and characteristics, widening the scope of participation. Oh Ju-heon, head of LH's Public Housing Headquarters, said, "Through diverse cooperation with private operators, we will carry out the government's dwelling supply policy without a hitch and do our best to ensure safe, high-quality public dwellings are supplied in a timely manner."
However, despite LH's plan to broaden participation by construction companies, concerns emerged, particularly among regional builders, that this year's private-participation volume is concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area, making it difficult to take part. There was also criticism that specific proposals on sales and rental types have not yet been presented.
An LH official said, "After the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport releases the residential welfare roadmap in March, specific volumes and the sales and rental types will come out," adding, "LH is an agency that executes after seeing the results, so we cannot predict, but it's not as if we can allocate no volume to the regions at all, can we."