Seoul mayor, Yongsan lawmaker unite against housing plan for Yongsan Park

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and People Power Party lawmaker Kwon Young-se, who represents Yongsan, met Tuesday and made clear their shared opposition to the government's plan to build housing inside Yongsan Park.

Oh held the meeting with Kwon at his City Hall office that afternoon. Housing Director Myeong No-jun and Housing and Real Estate Policy Chief Kim Se-shin also attended.

Oh said rising incomes have made urban residents increasingly hungry for spaces to heal mentally and emotionally, and that leisure space is urgently needed. "Even so, the area of walkable parks in Seoul is woefully small by the standards of major global cities," he said. He added that Seoul's per-capita walkable park area stands at about 5.7 square meters — roughly one-fourth to one-sixth that of large cities such as London, New York, Paris and Beijing. "People vaguely assume we have enough green space because Namsan, Inwangsan and Bukhansan are visible in the distance, but in fact the walkable park area in our daily lives is far too small," he said. "As national income grows, housing is necessary, but green space and park area must also be secured."

Oh said Yongsan Park, with its history as a foreign military base, could serve as an invaluable green space for the city, and that a national consensus had formed around that idea — leading to the enactment of the Special Act on Yongsan Park. "That special law was created to ensure that no matter what, the park's area would never be mobilized for development," he said. "Now they want to amend that law to put apartments inside Yongsan Park. This cannot be a policy that any one administration picks up and discards as it sees fit." He said such a change could only happen after a broad national consensus and a prior public deliberation process. "That deliberation has never taken place, which is why I believe residents of Yongsan and citizens of Seoul alike cannot accept this," he said.

Kwon also pushed back against the government's housing supply plan. "There is a saying that if you were to build apartments in Central Park — America's landmark — you would need an equally large psychiatric hospital," he said. He noted that the Yongsan Park project began under the Roh Tae-woo government and was enshrined in law under the Roh Moo-hyun administration. "I believe the law was enacted precisely to prevent this important land from being turned into apartments or converted to other uses on a momentary whim," he added. "The idea of dismantling Yongsan Park and cramming apartments into it is something even past military governments would not have done," Kwon said.

Meanwhile, attention is mounting over whether the government's plan is actually feasible after it signaled its intention to consider not just the Yongsan Children's Garden but the entirety of Yongsan Park as a potential housing supply site. Yongsan Park is a large urban green space covering about 3 million square meters, managed as a national park under a special law. Any housing construction would require amending that legislation. While the Children's Garden, which accounts for roughly one-tenth of the park's total area, has been the primary site under discussion, the government said it intends to survey the entire park for any land that could be put to use. Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yun-deok, at a press briefing marking her first anniversary in office on Friday, was asked about plans to use the Children's Garden for housing. "The Children's Garden is too narrow a concept — we are thinking about Yongsan Park as a whole," she said, making clear the review would not be limited to that section.