The Yongsan International Business District urban development project in Seoul is adrift. With the Seoul city government and the central government failing to narrow differences over the scale of dwellings supply, delays in this year's planned land sale are unavoidable. Within the ruling camp, some have even argued for scrapping private sales altogether and shifting to a public development in which the National Pension Service participates.
According to the Seoul city government on the 22nd, KORAIL and the Seoul Housing and Urban Development Corporation (SH), the project implementers, had planned to sell 3 to 5 of the 18 parcels in the Yongsan International Business District this year, but they have been unable to proceed with land sales because no serviced land supply plan has been released.
A serviced land supply plan, under the Urban Development Act, is a plan the project implementer establishes when selling land, including the use, area, and price of the land to be supplied, as well as eligibility requirements and selection methods for recipients. After obtaining approval for the supply plan from the mayor or provincial governor, the project implementer must go through procedures such as "establish supply guidelines → announcement → select enterprise → contract." At a Seoul Metropolitan Council Housing and Space Committee meeting on the 3rd, Kim Yong-hak, Seoul's director-general for future space planning, when asked whether they were at the stage of contacting enterprises that had expressed an intention to purchase land, said, "We are at the stage of having to finalize the supply guidelines, but it is difficult because of the number of dwelling units to be supplied."
The Seoul city government and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport remain far apart over the scale of dwellings supply. The city drew up a plan to supply 6,000 units in the Yongsan International Business District, but the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) proposed 10,000 units when it announced dwellings supply measures on Jan. 29. The city, considering limits on accommodating infrastructure such as schools, said it would raise the figure to a maximum of 8,000 units, but the government continues to insist on supplying 10,000 units.
At this rate, it seems unlikely the city can start construction and move residents in within its target timeline. The city previously presented a blueprint to build out infrastructure such as roads and parks by 2028, start construction of private buildings, and begin occupancy in 2030. Dwelling pre-sales were planned for late 2027. Currently, only infrastructure work is underway.
Amid this, calls to take the project back to square one have further heightened uncertainty. Park Ju-min, a Democratic Party of Korea preliminary candidate for Seoul mayor, proposed shifting from selling the Yongsan maintenance depot site to a public development involving the National Pension Service, and National Pension Service Chairman Kim Sung-joo said he would actively consider it. On the 18th, the preliminary candidate posted a photo on Facebook of a meeting with Kim, saying, "I proposed a development plan to supply 20,000 subscription-type dwellings through a method in which the National Pension Service participates instead of selling the Yongsan maintenance depot to the private sector."
The main idea is to convert to a public development structure in which the public sector retains ownership of the land as is, and the National Pension Service participates as the operator to secure land rent and operating revenue. Through this, the preliminary candidate argues for supplying 20,000 rental dwellings instead of for-sale dwellings. This is seen as reflecting the current administration's policy stance to expand "high-quality rental dwellings" rather than sales. President Lee Jae-myung has frequently said that public housing should be supplied as rentals rather than for sale.
An academic said, "In public sales, the initial buyer receives dwellings at a low price and thus realizes a capital gain," and added, "That is why there are calls to switch to rental dwellings, but whether placing as many as 20,000 rental dwellings on prime land in Seoul is economically efficient needs to be examined."