Seoul's first Moa Housing project completed in Gwangjin-gu

The first project site under Seoul's Moa Housing program, launched in 2022, has been completed this month and will begin accepting residents next month, signaling that housing supply through the Moa Housing and Moa Town initiative is gaining real momentum.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Thursday that the Hanyang Yeollip Moa Housing project — a small-scale residential renewal scheme — in Gwangjin-gu was completed Tuesday.

The completed development replaced a deteriorating low-rise residential area of 99 units with a four-building apartment complex of 215 units ranging from 10 to 15 above-ground floors, now known as Gangbyeon Station Central i'Park.

The Hanyang Yeollip project improved its viability by taking advantage of relaxed height restrictions introduced under the city's revised Moa Housing review standards. The site, zoned as a Class 2 general residential area previously capped at seven stories, had originally been planned as a six-building, 211-unit development. After the city introduced its Moa Housing review standards in May 2022, the height limit was raised to an average of 13 stories and a maximum of 15, allowing the number of buildings to be reduced to four while the unit count increased by four to 215.

The project stands out as a case where deregulation by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, administrative support from Gwangjin-gu and private-sector drive combined to deliver results — breaking ground just eight months after an integrated review and reaching completion two and a half years after that.

Myeong No-jun, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's housing bureau, said the Moa Housing and Moa Town program has been ramping up since its 2022 launch with a target of breaking ground on 40,000 units by 2031. "We will continue to expand Moa Housing and Moa Town as a pillar of private-sector urban renewal through deregulation and administrative support," he said.

Moa Housing is a small-scale renewal scheme in which owners of adjacent plots in aging low-rise neighborhoods pool their land to build quality multi-unit housing — areas where large-scale redevelopment is not feasible. It differs from Moa Town, which takes a more systematic approach by grouping multiple Moa Housing projects together and ensuring the resulting clusters are equipped with shared infrastructure such as roads, parking and parks, much like a large apartment complex.