Nowon-gu and leaders team up as 'one team'

Nowon-gu will launch a public-private council to communicate with redevelopment and reconstruction project leaders, identify difficulties at project sites and work out solutions together.

The district office said it will hold an inauguration ceremony for the "Nowon Redevelopment and Reconstruction Innovation Strategy Council" on Tuesday. It will then begin full-scale operation of a public-private cooperation system aimed at resolving complex-specific issues and improving relevant regulations.

In Nowon-gu, a growing number of aging housing units built more than 30 years ago has fueled strong resident interest and momentum behind redevelopment projects. Currently, about 82,000 households across 65 project sites are undergoing redevelopment or reconstruction.

As numerous large-scale redevelopment projects move forward at the same time, the district formed the council to quickly identify site-specific issues and provide administrative support tailored to each project's characteristics.

The council will be chaired by the district mayor. The director of the Urban Planning Bureau, the head of the Reconstruction Project Division and the head of the Future City Division will serve as ex officio members. On the private side, 34 project leaders will take part, including association heads, promotion committee chairs and representatives who have applied for fast-track advisory consulting.

The council is meant to be more than a forum for simply gathering opinions. It will operate as an "action-oriented body" that digs up problems on the ground and works together to find solutions.

Key topics for discussion include the policy direction for redevelopment projects, unreasonable regulations and system-improvement tasks that need to be identified, complex-specific issues and best practices, tailored "pinpoint support" and alternatives for individual projects, and public support measures.

Regular meetings will be held twice a year. When urgent issues arise, the council will convene ad hoc sessions by region or by issue, and for matters requiring expert review, it plans to bring in advisory panels of specialists by field to work out practical solutions.

The launch of the council is a core strategy under the ninth popularly elected Nowon-gu administration's "fast-track redevelopment project system."

In July, at the launch of the ninth popularly elected administration, the district formed a "reconstruction fast-track task force" directly under the district mayor. The task force has been concentrating administrative resources on improving unreasonable regulations, providing tailored support for individual project sites and speeding up redevelopment projects. Through the council, the district plans to continuously gather input from project leaders. It aims to build a public-private cooperation system that moves from identifying issues to providing tailored support and improving regulations.

The district will closely link the council with "Redevelopment and Reconstruction Regulatory Innovation 100." The initiative aims to identify and improve 100 unreasonable regulations blocking redevelopment projects during the ninth popularly elected term. The council will continuously surface regulations and institutional limitations that project leaders experience on the ground. It will swiftly push forward improvements the district can make on its own, while proposing changes requiring law or Seoul Metropolitan Government system revisions to relevant authorities.

Seo Jun-o, the Nowon-gu district mayor, said, "To speed up redevelopment and reconstruction projects, we need to accurately identify the difficulties encountered during the process and resolve them quickly. We will work as one team with the project leaders to remove obstacles one by one and follow through with the necessary institutional improvements to produce results that residents can genuinely feel."