Idle Sites Considered for Additional Supply

Archive photo / Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] With the exclusion of greenbelt areas, attention is once again focused on where idle land that can be additionally supplied is located. However, since most of the available land within Seoul was already included in the 2018 supply plan aimed at curbing the rapid rise in housing prices, and given ongoing concerns about whether supplying only housing on key urban planning sites that should be used for various purposes is the right approach, the government is expected to face deeper deliberations before finalizing the supply plan.

In the industry, besides the already mentioned Taereung Golf Course, additional candidate sites for supply include the Seoul Trade Exhibition Center (SETEC) in Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and the Seoul Housing & Communities Corporation (SH) building near Daechung Station on Seoul Subway Line 3. Idle railway land within Seoul, such as in front of Hyochang Park, is also mentioned as a subject for review.

When the government announced the metropolitan area supply plan in 2018, it proposed developing station-area sites such as the Seongdong Detention Center site near Ogeum Station on Line 3 (1,300 households), the Gangnam Branch of Seoul Medical Center in Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu (800 households), and the Dongbu Road Office in Daechi-dong (2,200 households) into residential land to supply housing. As already stated through the July 10 measures, increasing floor area ratios in urban areas would allow additional supply on these sites as well. The Yongsan Maintenance Depot site is similar. The number of households can be increased by reducing unit area per household and raising the floor area ratio compared to the existing supply plan (8,000 households).

SETEC is expected to be able to supply up to 7,000 households if developed in conjunction with the nearby Dongbu Road Office, which is scheduled to be developed into residential land. However, it is known that the Seoul Metropolitan Government has internally decided to develop this site as a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, and Exhibitions) complex, so whether it will be supplied depends on further discussions.

Railway land such as the area in front of Hyochang Park (8,090㎡) is also one of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s supply review targets. There are about 40 large and small idle railway sites within Seoul. However, many of these sites already had more than 2,000 households included in the 2018 supply plan, and a major drawback is that actual supply would take several years.

The industry also mentions the potential use of retention basins in the Gangnam area. The Jamsil and Tancheon retention basins in Songpa-gu were designated as pilot sites for Happy Housing in 2013 but the projects were not carried out due to resident opposition.

However, the Reserve Forces Training Center in Naegok-dong, Seocho-gu, which had been mentioned several times before, is expected to be excluded from the candidate sites as it is also designated as greenbelt.

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