Controversy is rising over alleged budget waste as massive costs are poured in every year to create a flower garden on the site designated for Incheon's Songdo "K-Pop Content City," a project that fell through amid preferential treatment suspicions.

According to Incheon City on November 3, Incheon Urban Corporation (iH) recently signed a contract worth around 760 million won with a landscaping and construction company to create a flower garden on the 158,900-square-meter former K-Pop Content City site in the R2 block of Zone 8, Songdo International City.

According to the construction specifications, the company will sow rapeseed and cosmos seeds, plant natural grass to cultivate the flower garden, and build resting pavilions and barefoot walking paths.

Separately, iH decided to spend 240 million won this year to build a photo zone using flower sculptures at the site, which will later be demolished.

iH has been repeating this flower garden project every year since 2019, spending hundreds of millions of won at times.

As the commercial R2 block invested by Incheon City in 2013 was left undeveloped and abandoned for a long period, iH pursued the flower garden project with the aim of providing attractions and resting spaces for nearby residents.

Development of the K-Pop Content City—which aimed to attract a global K-Pop entertainment company and build a dedicated K-Pop arena—was pushed at the site in 2023, but it collapsed after sparking preferential treatment controversies over allegations that a specific business operator was favored, and the development direction remains undecided.

Residents are expressing opinions that rather than repeating the cycle of spending massive budgets on creating and demolishing flower gardens every year, development projects should be prepared in the direction residents hope for.

Recently, posts have been successively uploaded on Songdo online communities saying, "It is hard to understand why a lot of money is spent on facilities that will be demolished," and "It is better to invest the budget into the delayed project instead."

An iH official stated, "Investment attraction has been suspended as development conditions have deteriorated due to the real estate slump and rising construction costs," adding, "We will promote prompt development by communicating closely with the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority, which holds the licensing authority."

(Photo provided by Incheon Urban Corporation, Yonhap News)