First street housing cooperative approved in Dobong-gu's Moa Town

Seoul's Dobong-gu approved the establishment of a street housing improvement cooperative at 522-19 Chang 3-dong, located within zones 1-2 of the Moa Town development covering the area around 501-13 Chang 3-dong. The approval was granted on the 23rd.

It marks the first cooperative establishment approval for a street housing improvement project within the Moa Town area at 501-13 Chang 3-dong. The zone is set to receive a total of 317 apartment units — including 53 rental units — in a complex spanning two basement floors and 25 above-ground floors.

Moa Town is a Seoul Metropolitan Government initiative that consolidates multiple small-scale housing improvement projects — known as "Moa Housing" — pursued block by block by owners in low-rise residential areas where large-scale redevelopment is difficult. The city provides systematic oversight and public facility support under the program.

Chang 3-dong is a representative example of an aging low-rise residential neighborhood in urgent need of systematic improvement: it is densely packed with single-family and multi-unit homes, has a high proportion of semi-basement units, and more than 80 percent of its buildings are over 20 years old.

The area around 501-13 Chang 3-dong was designated as a Moa Town site in 2024, and a management plan was approved and publicly announced in August 2025.

The Moa Town area at 501-13 Chang 3-dong covers a total of 47,933.7 square meters and will be developed by three separate cooperatives under the management plan, with approximately 1,261 units to be supplied in total.

A key improvement came from a zoning upgrade: the area was reclassified from a second-category general residential zone — previously capped at seven stories — to a third-category general residential zone, raising the floor area ratio from 250 percent to 300 percent.

Project viability was further enhanced in May, when a revised management plan was approved and announced applying a profitability adjustment coefficient, which reduced the burden of building rental housing.

Dobong-gu District Mayor Kim Dong-wook said the district would work to complete cooperative establishment for the remaining zones before the end of this year, starting with the approval at 522-19 Chang 3-dong, so that the Moa Town project can move forward without delay.