A residents' group of about 1,000 people in Seoul's Yongsan District, "Residents to Protect Yongsan Park," launched a protest with congratulatory wreaths opposing the government's review of supplying dwellings in the Yongsan Children's Garden. The residents will pool expense to install wreaths and demand that Yongsan Park be created as originally planned.
As the government reviewed a plan to create rental dwellings and more in the Yongsan Children's Garden, part of the Yongsan Garrison site, nearby residents are pushing back, citing concerns over a worsening residential environment and damage to the asset value of nearby dwellings.
According to ChosunBiz on the 8th, the Residents to Protect Yongsan Park began installing wreaths opposing the supply of dwellings near the Yongsan Children's Garden from that morning. The group plans to issue a statement on site at 2:40 p.m. that day.
The residents initially considered holding the protest on the 10th or 11th, but moved up the schedule to this day after internal discussions. Residents are each covering the expense and preparing about 300 wreaths. A representative of the group said, "The schedule was changed urgently during internal discussions," and noted, "We decided to install the wreaths on the weekend so that many passersby can see them."
The wreaths carried messages such as "A park is not vacant land. It is the children's tomorrow," "Yongsan Children's Garden is not a target for development but a national asset to be protected," and "Supply dwellings elsewhere; the park is for future generations."
The Residents to Protect Yongsan Park is made up of Yongsan District residents. As the government pushed to expand the scale of dwellings supply in the Yongsan International Business District, residents began to gather, and they previously expressed opposition by installing about 100 wreaths when the expansion of dwellings in the Yongsan International Business District was discussed.
The Yongsan Children's Garden is a space where about 300,000 square meters out of roughly 3 million square meters of the Yongsan Garrison site returned by the U.S. military has been temporarily opened since 2023. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport oversees the Yongsan Park development project, and the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) operates the site.
On the 13th, with the lifting of 137,000 square meters of the restricted protection zone around the perimeter outside the Ministry of National Defense, it became known that the government is reviewing a plan to use this area as a site for supplying dwellings. The government was said to be reviewing the supply scale by weighing the usable area, floor area ratio, and the range of preserving the park.
However, supplying dwellings here would first require amending related laws. Soil contamination surveys and remediation on the returned site would also need to be carried out. The current Special Act on the Creation of Yongsan Park stipulates that the returned U.S. military base site be created as a national park and prohibits changing its use or disposing of it for other purposes. To supply dwellings in the Children's Garden, the government would need to create an exception clause allowing public housing supply or separate the target site from the park creation district.
On the 6th, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon also expressed opposition at a "citizens' grand debate for normalizing real estate" held at Seoul City Hall, saying, "Yongsan Park is a space that the government and the Seoul Metropolitan Government must preserve responsibly and pass down to future generations," and added, "It should not be used for the supply of dwellings, even in part."