Seoul Housing and Urban Development Corporation (SH) said on the 9th it signed a memorandum of understanding with the cooperatives for districts 1-1 and 1-3 of the Deungchon-dong Moa Town to jointly implement the street housing maintenance project. This is the first case among the 16 sites designated as "publicly managed Moa Town."
The "publicly managed Moa Town" is a Seoul city policy project in which public institutions such as SH help with redevelopment procedures—such as forming cooperatives and drawing up management plans—for areas where business conditions are relatively weak. Currently, 16 districts, including 10 with SH and 6 with Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH), are pushing projects with public support, and the Deungchon-dong Moa Town is the first project to be jointly implemented with SH.
After being selected in Dec. 2024 as a publicly managed site through a Seoul city competition, the Deungchon-dong Moa Town completed the establishment of cooperatives for two districts with support from Seoul city and SH. This is a case of shortening to about 18 months the cooperative formation process, which typically takes a long time due to resident conflicts or lack of business feasibility.
In Aug. last year, Seoul city said it would improve the business feasibility of the Moa housing program and shorten the project period through the "measures to revitalize Moa housing and Moa Town." Accordingly, the Deungchon-dong Moa Town will also receive benefits such as: applying a business feasibility adjustment coefficient; raising the purchase price for public housing; and direct support for cooperative formation.
The Deungchon-dong Moa Town consists of 582 households in five districts within a total project area of 129,670 square meters, and it is planned to be developed into a residential complex of 2,143 households through integrated operation among the districts.
For districts 1-1 and 1-3, which have completed cooperative formation, after obtaining the consent of more than 50% of members, they will sign a joint project implementation agreement with SH and will begin in earnest with follow-up procedures such as architectural review.
If joint project implementation takes place, the cooperative can receive benefits such as: expanding the project implementation area (up to 40,000 square meters); reducing the required ratio of public housing construction (50% → 30% of the increased floor area ratio); and financing project costs through the to-be-launched "Moa Reliable Fund (tentative name)." In addition, stable project implementation is possible based on SH's transparent fund management and step-by-step administrative and technical support.
Son O-seong, head of SH's Strategic Projects Division, said, "Based on the public development experience and expertise SH has accumulated, we will do our best to ensure the project proceeds in a stable and transparent manner." Myeong No-jun, Seoul city's director of architectural planning, noted, "By publicly managing "Moa Town" areas where business conditions are poor—aging, low-rise residential neighborhoods—we will refurbish the area and expand infrastructure to create conditions for original residents to return, thereby contributing to housing stability for Seoul citizens."