"Public Planning Is the Last Exit"... Growing Expectations for Oh Se-hoon's Redevelopment Plan

Active Participation in Urban Regeneration and New Town Deregulation Areas
Candidate Site Discovery to Begin at the End of This Month... 26,000 Households Annually

Changsin-dong area, Jongno-gu, Seoul

"Public planning is a dead end for urban regeneration areas neglected by the government."

As Seoul prepares to announce redevelopment candidate sites applying regulatory relaxation measures, market expectations are spreading. Although the official call for proposals is still about a month away, active participation movements are being detected, especially in urban regeneration areas where public redevelopment was frustrated or in areas where New Town designations were lifted. Some predict that the ‘Oh Se-hoon Seoul Mayor’s’ redevelopment, centered on government-led public redevelopment and deregulation, will enter full-scale competition in the market.

According to Seoul City on the 2nd, the city plans to officially start the call for proposals at the end of this month to discover 25 private redevelopment candidate sites through public planning. Public planning is the core of the six major redevelopment deregulation measures announced by Mayor Oh in May. The main point is to shorten the period required for designation of maintenance zones from 5 years to 2 years. The city plans to select candidate sites with a scale of 26,000 households annually, focusing on areas where residential environment improvement is urgent.

As the call for candidate sites enters the final countdown, development expectations are spreading widely, especially in areas severely aged and slumified. Since 2015, no new redevelopment zones have been designated, but this call for proposals opens up the possibility of projects.

The most active participants are urban regeneration areas excluded from last year’s government-led public redevelopment due to budget overlaps and other reasons. So far, 11 areas including Changsin and Sungin-dong in Jongno-gu, Seogye-dong in Yongsan-gu, and Garibong-dong in Guro-gu have expressed their intention to participate. Some areas have even created their own consent forms to encourage owners before the official call for proposals begins. In fact, in Changsin-dong, the resident consent rate is reported to have exceeded 35%. A public planning official in this area said, "In the absence of plans to expand public redevelopment targets, public planning is the only way out for deteriorated urban regeneration areas."

Seoul City also decided to recognize consent forms collected after May 26, when the public planning policy was announced, in the call for proposals at the end of September. A city official explained, "After receiving complaints that some areas were collecting consent forms independently, we communicated the criteria for recognizing consent forms and precautions to the maintenance project departments of each autonomous district to reduce confusion on the ground." However, Seoul City emphasized that the purpose and content of collecting consent forms must conform to the private redevelopment call for proposals.

The New Town delisted area in Jeonnong-dong, Dongdaemun-gu said, "Unlike public redevelopment, public planning seems to minimize public interference while shortening the project period," and added, "We decided to start collecting consent forms immediately in consultation with the district office."

Meanwhile, Seoul City has also announced plans to abolish the Residential Maintenance Index system, a barrier to designating maintenance zones, and to relax regulations on Type 2 seven-story general residential areas, in addition to public planning. The city is pushing for changes to the ‘Basic Plan for Urban and Residential Environment Maintenance.’ After going through the Seoul City Council’s opinion hearing process, the plan is to finalize it by the end of this month through the Urban Planning Committee review.

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