Residents Cry Foul as JYP's New HQ Faces Blocked Views: Give Us Our Park Back

As JYP Entertainment plans to build its new headquarters in Gangdong-gu, Seoul, residents have launched collective action after a plot of land originally slated for a park right in front of the upcoming building was rezoned to allow office and commercial facilities.

JYP is also reviewing response strategies as it may even need to alter the design of its new headquarters.

The Residents' Solidarity for Protecting the Park in Front of JYP's New Headquarters is currently collecting online signatures demanding that the Autonomous Zone 8 plot in the Godeok Gangil District be reverted to parkland.

The land in question is an approximately 13,000-square-meter plot in Godeok-dong, Gangdong-gu, Seoul, owned by the Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH).

It faces the land JYP purchased to build its new headquarters, separated by just a single road.

In October 2023, JYP purchased the roughly 10,000-square-meter new headquarters site from SH for 75.5 billion won.

At the time, the Autonomous Zone 8 plot right across from the new headquarters site was designated as neighborhood parkland.

JYP is also known to have reflected this in the design of its new headquarters, expecting a park to be built there.

However, in December 2024, about one year and two months after JYP purchased the land, SH applied to change the land use from a neighborhood park to a facility for autonomous functions, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport approved the revision in October of last year.

The land for autonomous function facilities can accommodate not only office buildings, factories, and research institutes, but also hotels, exhibition halls, and commercial spaces.

JYP, which had drafted its design based on the premise of a park, stated that it is "reviewing countermeasures from various angles," keeping even the possibility of scrapping the new headquarters project in mind.

In addition, residents in Gangdong-gu have also risen in protest, claiming that the use of the land planned as a park was changed without sufficient collection of opinions.

Residents are demanding that the land be reverted to parkland and that a public hearing be held.

As complaints poured in, the Gangdong-gu Council has ultimately decided to initiate a legal review to see if the rezoning can be reversed.

SH, the landowner, maintains the position that the rezoning was inevitable to secure funding for school sites.

If the issue leads to future legal disputes between JYP and SH, key issues are expected to include whether there was an agreement regarding the creation of a park opposite the site in the land purchase contract between the two parties, and when SH began reviewing the rezoning.

Reported by Kim Minjeong | Video by Seo Byeong-wook | Graphics by Lee Su-min | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.