Lee vows to cut time to break ground on 3rd-generation new towns by half

Attention is turning to how the government plans to accelerate development of third-generation new towns, following a national housing policy forum that President Lee Jae Myung chaired on Thursday.

At the forum, Lee signaled a targeted tax increase on owners of ultra-high-priced single homes and non-resident single homeowners, and said doubling the pace of third-generation new town development was one of the key measures to boost housing supply.

"Looking at the third-generation new towns, the delays in breaking ground on already-announced sites are a truly serious problem," Lee said. "What is this — sixty-something months? Administrative speed is far too slow." He added that the government was "internally reviewing ways to cut that to less than half," drawing considerable attention.

The president structured the forum around three pillars — supply, financing and taxation — gathering input on each before personally chairing a general discussion. The move was widely seen as an expression of his frustration with the sluggish pace of housing supply.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it would draw up detailed plans to dramatically shorten the time to ground-breaking by running administrative procedures simultaneously rather than sequentially, in line with the president's remarks.

The ministry said it believes overall procedural streamlining can reduce timelines. Lee also said at the forum that he was considering "changing regulations where necessary, or running procedures that are normally done sequentially in parallel, to shave some time off the overall process."

Specific measures under consideration include conducting land acquisition and compensation negotiations concurrently, consolidating various environmental and other impact assessments into a single integrated review, and carrying out district designation and planning simultaneously.

The government announced through its second-half economic growth package that it would develop measures to speed up public housing land development — including running procedural steps in parallel and advancing key stages earlier — within the second half of the year. Those measures include shortening the consultation period with relevant agencies on district designation and planning, and launching preliminary land compensation surveys before formal district designation. The pledge to cut the time to ground-breaking to "less than half," however, had not previously been mentioned, making the president's remarks significant.

Analysts note that resident opposition and complaints arising from the land acquisition process will inevitably remain wild cards. A former senior official at the ministry said that while third-generation new towns were designated about six years ago, breaking ground has remained elusive, underscoring how difficult it is to move quickly. "Looking at the opposition from residents near the Gwacheon racetrack, for instance, one way to pick up speed would be to consolidate various procedures before moving to compensation," the official said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is pushing emergency measures to revitalize housing supply. In November last year, it set up a special task force together with the Korea Land and Housing Corporation to accelerate follow-up steps — including legislative tasks — needed to meet the target of breaking ground on 1.35 million homes by 2030 under the Sept. 7 supply plan. The ministry has also established a fast-track permitting support center to resolve inconsistent local ordinance interpretations and ambiguous regulations that have been the main cause of permitting delays across municipalities.