'SH Corporation's First Female Head' Nominee Kim Hyun-ah, Anticipated to Collaborate with Mayor Oh

Housing Urban Planning Expert for 20 Years
New Challenge as an Administrator

Kim Hyun-ah, Emergency Response Committee member of the United Future Party, is being interviewed on the 2nd at the Goyang Dasijak Urban Research Institute in Gyeonggi./Goyang=Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] Kim Hyun-ah, a former member of the National Assembly and housing and urban expert from the former United Future Party (now People Power Party), is making a surprising transformation into an administrator. She has been nominated as the president of the Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH Corporation), which is responsible for executing housing and urban policies in Seoul, a city with a population of 9.56 million. Kim, the nominee for president, is set to be officially appointed after a confirmation hearing at the Seoul Metropolitan Council on the 19th. She will be the first female head in the 32-year history of SH Corporation.

Kim is an urban planning expert with extensive experience in housing policy. She earned her master's and doctoral degrees in urban planning from Gachon University and served as the head of the Construction Economy Research Office at the Korea Institute of Construction Industry (KIC), researching housing issues and urban planning for over 20 years. She began her career at the Seoul Institute, Seoul's think tank, and from 2013 to 2016, she served as a policy advisory committee member for Seoul's residential environment improvement, maintaining a close relationship with the city. Based on this experience, she also served as a proportional representative member of the National Assembly for four years starting in 2016.

During her time as a lawmaker, she was active on the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, focusing on housing policy. In the 2016 National Assembly audit, she gained recognition for effectively highlighting youth housing issues by displaying a 1.5-pyeong (approximately 5 square meters) model of a gosiwon (small room for rent) in the National Assembly Members' Office Building. She also attracted attention by directly investigating and recording conversations at illegal real estate trading sites, exposing the so-called ‘tteotdabang’ (speculative real estate agents) who are the main culprits behind the overheated real estate market and illegal transactions. She became well-known as a sharp critic of the current government's real estate policies and was dubbed the ‘sharpshooter’ against former Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Hyun-mi.

After her appointment, Kim will work closely with Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon to implement the city's housing policies. In particular, she is expected to actively support the recently announced redevelopment revitalization measures on the ground, aiming to expand housing supply through private redevelopment. The mayor’s election pledges, such as long-term lease housing (SHIFT) and co-prosperity housing (a system that supplies housing by utilizing neglected private land), are also expected to gain momentum.

The industry is also paying attention to her activities as co-representative of the Urban Regeneration Strategy Forum, where she has shown interest in the regeneration of aging cities such as first-generation new towns. In fact, she established the ‘DasiJak Urban Research Institute’ in Ilsan New Town and has continued active field research until recently. This suggests that Seoul’s housing supply expansion policies may place significant emphasis on various urban regeneration efforts. Regarding this, Kim said, "I will do my best in my role as an institution executing housing supply policies."

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