[Desk Column] Concerns About the 'Gongik' Omnipotence Doctrine

Jeong Duhwan, Head of Construction and Real Estate Department

In early 2018, ahead of the local elections, candidates for the Seoul mayor from the ruling Democratic Party of Korea made unofficial pledges regarding the use of a vacant 37,141㎡ plot of land in Songhyeon-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. One candidate insisted that the land should host the National Museum of Korea, the National Folk Museum, and the National Korean Literature Museum, while another, citing the origin of the place name, advocated for the creation of an ecological park. The protagonists were Park Won-soon, then Mayor of Seoul, and Park Young-sun, the current Minister of SMEs and Startups. Even the Speaker of the National Assembly at the time joined in, stating that "the government should purchase the land and promote public development."

However, the land had a different owner at the time. Korean Air had already purchased it in 2008 for 290 billion won. Essentially, a third party was giving unsolicited advice on land that clearly had an owner. The company invested heavily in this land with the intention of building a proper hotel featuring the elegant style of traditional hanok architecture in the heart of Seoul, a popular destination for foreigners. However, this plan was scrapped two years later after local residents opposed the hotel, arguing that its presence near schools would infringe on students' right to education. Since then, the land, surrounded by rusty iron gates and stone walls, has been left neglected and overgrown with weeds.

Seoul City strongly opposed Korean Air's plan to sell the Songhyeon-dong site as part of its self-help measures amid financial difficulties. The city presented a concrete roadmap to designate the land as a cultural park within the year and even unilaterally set a specific purchase price of 476 billion won, notifying Korean Air. In effect, the city blocked any other disposal methods except reselling the land at the price set by the city. It was no surprise that no one participated in the preliminary bidding for the land sale, which closed on the 10th.

Observing the controversy surrounding the Songhyeon-dong site, one cannot help but feel that the concept of 'public interest' is too easily abused in our society. When infringing on individual interests, our society uses the balance with public interest as a benchmark. The logic is that if the public benefit is significantly greater, some infringement on individual interests is permissible. However, there has been considerable criticism that excessive infringement on private property rights has been routinely justified under the banner of 'public interest.'

Here, it is worth revisiting the 1999 Constitutional Court decision that declared unconstitutional the old Urban Planning Act (Article 4), which allowed local governments to designate private land for urban planning facilities but fail to execute the plan for a long time, thereby infringing on private property rights. That decision put a stop to the administrative practice of designating private land as urban parks but leaving it unattended for extended periods. As a result, the 'Urban Park Sunset System' was introduced to protect landowners' property rights by removing land from urban park designation if no park development occurs within 20 years.

If the Songhyeon-dong land is not used as a park, how much is the public interest truly harmed? Would it really be against the public interest for a third party to purchase the land and utilize it according to its designated land use? The Songhyeon-dong site is already subject to stringent building regulations considering its location. It is designated as a Special Design Zone within a Type 1 General Residential Area. The authority that determined the land use is, of course, Seoul City. Overturning this and designating the area as a cultural park means the city is contradicting its own urban policy.

It is true that Seoul City's claim for 'parkification' partially aligns with public interest. Nevertheless, changing the land use to effectively diminish the value of private property, unilaterally setting a purchase price without consultation, and attempting to acquire the land through such means can only be seen as an excessive abuse of authority.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.