Seoul's first Moa Housing complex opens, turning semi-basement village into new apartments in 3 years

Seoul's first completed residential complex under the city's "Moa Housing" small-scale redevelopment program has opened its doors to residents.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Monday that the Moa Housing project at Hanyang Yeonlib in Gwangjin-gu was completed last month and began accepting move-ins this month — marking the first instance of a Moa Housing project reaching completion and occupancy since the program was introduced in 2022.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the complex Monday and said the development had added 116 units to a site that would have been impossible to redevelop without the Moa Housing framework. "Hanyang Yeonlib has been transformed into an apartment complex with 116 more units in just over three years since the integrated review," Oh said. "We will break ground on 40,000 Moa Housing units by 2031 to strengthen housing stability for Seoul residents."

Moa Housing is a small-scale redevelopment scheme that allows adjacent landowners in aging, low-rise residential areas — areas that do not meet the requirements for full-scale reconstruction or redevelopment — to consolidate their plots and build multi-unit housing together.

The Hanyang Yeonlib site covers 9,877 square meters and was home to 99 households in a deteriorating low-rise neighborhood. Some 94 percent of the buildings were classified as aging, and 70 percent of the units were semi-basement dwellings. Roads were only 6 meters wide, illegal parking was rampant, and parking and rest areas were scarce. Because the site fell short of the 10,000-square-meter threshold required for large-scale redevelopment, a conventional project had been out of reach.

Under the deregulation provisions of the Moa Housing review standards, the maximum building height was raised from 10 to 15 stories and the floor-area ratio increased from 234 percent to 248 percent. The number of buildings was reduced from six to four, while the planned unit count grew from 211 to 215 — a net gain of 116 units compared with the original 99.

The timeline was also compressed. Hanyang Yeonlib passed its integrated review in June 2023, broke ground in February 2024 and was completed last month — roughly three years from review to completion. The Seoul Metropolitan Government said a conventional large-scale redevelopment would have taken more than eight years; the small-scale approach and integrated review process cut that time significantly.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has been rolling out additional deregulation to improve the viability of Moa Housing projects. In July, the city scrapped the "average 13-story" height cap that had applied to second-category general residential zones restricted to seven stories or below. Projects in zones that border two or more other use-district categories and are pursued on a block-by-block basis can now, after committee review, build mid- to high-rise apartments without a fixed height limit, subject to consideration of surrounding conditions and the streetscape.

Alongside this, the city revised its review standards to allow Moa Town districts in transit-oriented areas or along arterial roads at least 20 meters wide — provided they meet certain conditions — to be reclassified as quasi-residential zones. The maximum floor-area ratio was raised to 400 percent, and projects that also supply purchase-rental housing may apply a statutory ceiling of up to 500 percent.

The program is expanding across Seoul. Associations have been established at 168 sites, of which 14, comprising about 2,200 units, have broken ground. Another 27 sites, covering about 3,800 units, have received project implementation plan approval and are preparing to start construction. In Gwangjin-gu alone, 27 Moa Housing projects are under way across 10 Moa Town districts, with resident-consent procedures for candidate-site selection ongoing in an additional 10 zones.

Last month the city unveiled its "Moa Town Fast-Track Integration Plan," setting a target of breaking ground on 40,000 Moa Housing units by 2031. Under the plan, 146 zones ready for construction will be divided into intensive- and general-management tracks, while new projects will adopt a "Moa Integrated Planning" approach that runs management-plan preparation and association establishment simultaneously — cutting the time from candidate-site selection to groundbreaking from roughly six years to about four and a half. The city also plans to designate 100 additional Moa Integrated Planning candidate sites by 2030, securing a housing supply base of roughly 120,000 units.