The government will cut the time from announcing candidate public housing sites to groundbreaking from an average of 68 months to 37 months, a reduction of 31 months. It plans to move up groundbreaking for 89,000 dwellings in public housing sites across the Seoul metropolitan area, including the third new towns, and to start work on urban supply sites such as Taereung Country Club, Gwacheon Racecourse, and the Defense Security Command site by 2030.
However, whether the government can keep the timeline it presented will hinge on project-specific variables, including funding needed for compensation, metropolitan transportation plans, and facility transfer, as well as resident opposition.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on the 13th released the "rapid supply plan for dwellings to stabilize the jeonse, monthly rent, and sales markets," which includes a "fastest-start model" that reduces the duration of public housing site projects by about 46%.
Until now, authorities proceeded in sequence with district designation, district plan establishment, compensation and relocation, and site preparation, but going forward they will run procedures that can be carried out simultaneously in parallel. The goal is to cut the period from candidate site announcement to groundbreaking, which used to take an average of 5 years and 8 months, to about 3 years and 1 month.
An official at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) said, "Demand for dwellings changes quickly depending on income and interest rates, but supply takes more than 10 years," and added, "We introduced the fastest-start model to ease the problem of rising home prices caused by the difference in response speed between demand and supply."
The government plans to apply this approach to move up groundbreaking for 89,000 dwellings in existing public housing sites such as the third new towns. Of these, 41,000 dwellings will have their groundbreaking advanced from after 2031 to before 2030. The remaining 48,000 dwellings will also see groundbreaking moved up by one to two years.
Urban supply sites released in the Jan. 29 measures will also all break ground by 2030. Taereung Country Club in Nowon District, Seoul, aims to complete a World Heritage impact assessment this year, run permitting procedures such as district designation and district plan establishment in parallel, and break ground in Sept. 2029.
Gwacheon Racecourse will select a relocation site by Sept. this year. For the Defense Security Command site, authorities will conduct contaminated soil and cultural heritage surveys in the second half of this year, then begin transfer of non-core facilities in the first half of 2027. The government plans to push facility transfer and district designation and compensation procedures simultaneously to break ground on the Gwacheon Racecourse and Defense Security Command sites in Dec. 2029.
The Yongsan international business district will not wait until site preparation is completed in 2029 and, in consultation with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Yongsan District, will start by breaking ground on dwellings from late 2028. Seongnam Yeosu 2 and Geumto 2 districts will integrate district designation and district plan establishment to break ground in 2029. The goal is to break ground on the Gangseo military site in 2027, Hanam tennis courts in 2028, and the Gwangmyeong Police Station site in 2029.
Market watchers note that merely running administrative procedures simultaneously will not easily slash project timelines. In public housing site development, land compensation and metropolitan transportation measures, which take a long time, require massive funding, and resident pushback can arise over compensation terms or transportation plans.
Nam Hyeok-woo of the Woori Bank Real Estate Research Institute said, "The procedures that take the most time in public housing site development are compensation and metropolitan transportation plans," and noted, "Beyond trimming administrative steps, fiscal capacity to bear the additional expense must back it up."
Conflicts at individual project sites are also variables. For Taereung Country Club, concerns over traffic congestion and damage to the environment and cultural heritage were raised earlier, leading to adjustments in the supply scale and schedule. For Gwacheon Racecourse, authorities must address the task of relocating the existing racecourse amid local opposition. For the Yongsan international business district as well, the central and local governments need to consult on the scale of dwelling supply and the order of groundbreaking.
Lee Eun-hyung, a research fellow at the Korea Research Institute for Construction Policy, said, "Given the significant time reduction presented by the government, it is more likely to proceed first at sites where conditions are in place rather than applying it uniformly to all," and added, "We will have to see whether it can be applied as planned to sites entangled with existing facility transfer issues, like the Gwacheon Racecourse."