[Anchor]
Around 60 housing project sites in Daegu have been left neglected without even breaking ground, turning into downtown eyesores. Residents are flooding local offices with complaints due to foul odors and swarming bugs, but local governments remain helpless.
TBC reporter Park Ga-young has the story.
[Reporter]
A school route set up with rusted iron fences.
Children narrowly walk past it.
Banners claiming construction lien rights hang everywhere, and the long-neglected land is overgrown with weeds.
Approval for building new apartment complexes here was granted in 2022, but to this day, construction has not even broken ground, leaving the site abandoned as a downtown eyesore.
As rainwater has accumulated over the years, large puddles have even formed.
The water is filled with various bugs and produces a severe stench.
[Parent: My child is in the third grade, and it's been like this since the first grade. Water seems to be pooling, and it looks quite dangerous.]
In Beomeo-dong, known as prime real estate in Daegu, an 8,200-square-foot plot of land sits idle right in the middle of a forest of high-rise apartments.
This is because the groundbreaking for the mixed-use residential and commercial apartments has been delayed indefinitely.
[Nearby Merchant: Frankly, I think it needs to be developed somehow, so leaving it neglected is naturally wrong.]
There are 66 housing construction project sites in the Daegu area that have yet to break ground.
Of these, 57 have been delayed for more than two years, and among them, 12 have been delayed for five years or more.
In most cases, economic stagnation has caused problems with builders securing financing.
The problem is that, unlike construction sites that have already broken ground, these untouched plots lack even legal grounds, limiting intervention by local governments.
[District Office Official: Since it is legally before the start of construction, we are reviewing related laws, but it seems there are no matters we can enforce.]
This is why voices are growing calling for the establishment of grounds that would allow local governments to take direct action, even if it is private land, when factors that undermine the public interest arise.
[KYUNGMIN, Daegu Suseong-gu Council Member: Because it is actually a dispute within private land, there wasn't much room for authorities to step in. So we are reviewing whether we can resolve these issues through ordinances and are actually preparing for enactment.]
Dozens of unconstructed sites left neglected for years amid poor management are causing safety issues as well as urban hollowing.
(Video by Jungwoo | Design: Kim Se-yoon)
TBC Park Ga-young
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