Development of Gunsan Geumrando, Which Had Been at a Standstill, Finally 'Starts'

Gunsan City and Seocheon County Promote 'Geumgang Estuary Grand Master Plan Establishment Project'

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hong Jaehee] The development of the offshore reclamation site Geumrando (金卵島), which had been at a standstill for a long time due to conflicts between local governments, is being relaunched.

On the 4th, Gunsan City in Jeonbuk Province decided to visit the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries at the end of this month together with Seocheon County in Chungnam Province to include Geumrando in the 4th Basic Port Plan (2021?2030).

Through this, Gunsan City and Seocheon County plan to develop Geumrando as a port waterfront space.

It took 22 years for the two local governments to come up with a joint development plan for Geumrando.

Geumrando is an artificial island created by piling up dredged soil dredged since 1980 to maintain Gunsan Port, located between the end of the Geum River, Gunsan Port, and Janghang Port.

This island is located in Haemang-dong, Gunsan City, with an area of 2,022,343㎡ (about 610,000 pyeong), which is about two-thirds the size of Yeouido.

In 1998, the first plan for offshore new city development for Geumrando was proposed but did not progress. It was included in the 3rd Basic Port Plan in 2011, and the government started a utilization plan study in 2012, but it was stopped after four months due to opposition from Seocheon County.

Later, in 2014, there was a plan to develop it as a tourism, leisure, sports, and ecological park, but this also failed due to Seocheon County's opposition citing environmental destruction and fishery damage.

As a result, Geumrando has been used as a dumping site for dredged soil to maintain Gunsan Port, but out of the total dumping capacity of 25.56 million ㎥, 23.46 million ㎥ had been dumped by last year, making the construction of a dumping site urgent.

Photo by Gunsan City Provided

Accordingly, the two local governments decided to promote the inclusion of Geumrando development, reflecting the construction of new dumping sites for Gunsan and Janghang Ports, in the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries’ ‘4th Basic Port Plan.’

They also agreed to jointly work to include Geumrando development (relocation of the 2nd bridge location) in the ‘3rd Basic Port Redevelopment Plan.’

To this end, since April, Gunsan City and Seocheon County have been promoting the ‘Geum River Estuary Grand Master Plan Establishment Project’ for Geumrando development.

This project aims to establish a comprehensive plan for potential development areas such as history, cultural tourism, ecological resources, fisheries and fishing villages, and ports utilizing the resources of the Geum River estuary. The two local governments plan to jointly propose the master plan to central government agencies once it is completed.

A Gunsan City official said, “Geumrando is located on the Geum River, which divides the boundary between Jeonbuk and Chungnam, not within any city or county in the province,” adding, “Taking advantage of the 7th local government term, the two regions have presented a joint development plan for regional win-win development.” He continued, “We will put our heads together and work hard to achieve balanced development between the two regions.”

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