Ministers and Seoul Mayor Meet, but Remain at Odds Over Yongsan Park Development

[Anchor]

Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yoon-deok and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon met to discuss the housing supply issue at Yongsan Park. However, both sides only confirmed their differences in stance and failed to reach any significant conclusion.

They plan to meet again next week to continue discussions, and reporter Jeon Hyeong-u has summarized the key points of conflict.

[Reporter]

Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yoon-deok and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon met this morning (the 20th).

[Oh Se-hoon / Mayor of Seoul: Welcome. There is a lot of interest.]

This is because there is a wide gap between the government and the Seoul Metropolitan Government over the development of the Yongsan area, which has emerged as a major focal point for real estate supply measures.

Minister Kim emphasized that rather than the entire Yongsan Park, only the areas that have already been damaged will be utilized in a limited way to supply housing for young adults.

[Kim Yoon-deok / Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport: Preserving Yongsan Park well and supplying housing to young adults and newlyweds are not mutually exclusive.]

Mayor Oh dismissed this, stating that because Yongsan Park is a major part of Seoul's green axis, he cannot agree to developing even a portion of it for residential purposes.

[Oh Se-hoon / Mayor of Seoul: Agreeing to that would leave me as a sinner of history as the Mayor of Seoul...]

Ultimately failing to narrow their differences, let us take a closer look at Yongsan Park.

The government's stance is that land where buildings already exist—including the Children's Garden inside Yongsan Park, the former Defense Acquisition Program Administration site, military apartments, and officers' quarters—can be developed.

However, the Seoul Metropolitan Government maintains that these areas are also part of the main park site and that the entire area should be created as a national garden, much like Seoul Forest.

Instead, Seoul proposed a compromise utilizing state-owned land around the park.

This includes Camp Kim, a 45,000-square-meter site announced as a 2,500-household supply site under the government's January 29 measures, as well as the 18,000-square-meter Gyeongnidan site, the Bank of Korea employee quarters, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs parking lot.

Differences in stance were also not narrowed regarding the Yongsan International Business District.

While the government aims to supply 10,000 households, Seoul and Yongsan-gu maintain that they can only accommodate up to 8,000 households.

Minister Kim and Mayor Oh plan to meet again next week to continue discussions.

Although both sides reportedly agreed on the broad principle of preserving Yongsan Park, they remain parallel on the core issue of developing the main park site, making it unlikely that a consensus will be easily reached.

(Photo courtesy of Yonhap News)
(Reported by Joo Beom, Kim Heung-ki, Shin Jin-soo, and Choi Ho-jun | Video editing by Lee Seung-hee | Design by Lee So-jung and Kang Yoon-jung)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.