Moatown to Expand to 100 Locations by 2026... Switching to Rolling Applications

Call for Site Selection on the 28th

Seoul City will accept applications for target sites on an ongoing basis to revitalize the 'Moatown·Moahouse' project, a low-rise residential area maintenance model. The city plans to expand the selection of target sites with the goal of designating a total of 100 Moatown locations by 2026.

Seoul City announced that from the 28th, it will open a public contest for selecting Moatown target sites and begin accepting 'ongoing applications' until the end of June 2025.

Moatown is a district-level plan that selects areas under 100,000㎡ with more than 50% aging to activate Moahouse and secure insufficient infrastructure within the area. When designated as a Moatown target site, benefits such as floor area ratio increases and various regulatory relaxations, including zoning upgrades, can be applied when promoting Moahouse projects.

The city is changing the previous contest method, which only accepted applications during specific periods, to 'ongoing applications.' When each autonomous district submits applications meeting the requirements for each target site to the city, the selection committee, which is held regularly, will review and notify the selection results. The city plans to select more than 35 additional target sites by 2025.

Moatown Residents Briefing Session

The Moatown contest involves autonomous districts collecting residents' opinions and submitting application forms to Seoul City. The city preliminarily reviews the applications, and if it judges the project promotion appropriate, the final target sites are selected through a selection committee composed of experts in urban planning, architecture, transportation, and other fields.

The target site selection committee comprehensively considers ▲whether there is damage due to dense semi-basement housing and frequent flooding ▲the necessity of maintenance such as building aging ▲feasibility of Moahouse (small-scale housing maintenance project) realization ▲concerns about resident conflicts and speculation such as new construction ▲and the rationality of promoting small-scale housing maintenance projects considering other local conditions.

Areas with a total area between 30,000 and 100,000㎡ (including three association/project sites and those over 30,000㎡) and more than 50% aging (over 57% for each project site) among old low-rise residential areas where redevelopment is difficult can apply for Moatown.

However, due to the nature of the Moatown project, which targets maintenance of old low-rise residential areas where large-scale redevelopment is difficult, areas where redevelopment is being promoted or planned are excluded.

When designated as a Moatown target site, the relevant autonomous district establishes a management plan and goes through procedures such as resident inspection and integrated review by the city to be designated as Moatown. The costs required for establishing the management plan will be supported by matching funds from the city and district within the 2023 budget.

Meanwhile, Seoul City plans to designate the day after the announcement of the contest selection as the rights calculation reference date and notify it to fundamentally block speculative demand such as share splitting.

Han Byung-yong, Director of Seoul City Housing Policy Office, said, "Since the first contest last year, Moatown has received great interest from residents of low-rise residential areas, and 65 sites have been designated as target sites so far, progressing smoothly. We will spare no effort to discover and support Moatown target sites to resolve chronic problems of low-rise residential areas such as poor living environments and lack of infrastructure and to provide stable housing supply."

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