Jeong Daeun, Gwangju City Council Member, Criticizes Lack of Transparency in Urban Planning Committee Operations (Comprehensive)

"Expand Opportunities for Citizen Participation by Making Meetings Public" Innovation Urged

City: "Issues Like Real Estate Speculation... Principle of Non-Public Meetings Maintained"

Jeong Da-eun, a member of the Gwangju Metropolitan Council (Democratic Party·Buk-gu 2), pointed out the opaque and unfair operation of the Urban Planning Committee. She also argued that the meetings should be made public to expand opportunities for citizen participation.

On the 14th, during a 5-minute speech at the 2nd plenary session of the 1st regular meeting of the 317th session, Councilor Jeong urged innovation in the Urban Planning Committee, including improvements in its composition, diversification of review issues, and public disclosure of meetings.

Jang Da-eun, Gwangju Metropolitan City Council Member.

She stated, “The reason Gwangju became an apartment city in 2023 is that the Urban Planning Committee, which should be the only check-and-balance body for urban planning and the last line of defense for citizens, failed to fulfill its responsibilities,” criticizing the committee’s operation.

She continued, “Regarding the Urban Planning Committee, which has several controversies such as ▲operating rules and meeting contents not disclosed to the public ▲review issues focused solely on technical aspects ▲different conclusions on similar matters ▲zero rejected review cases in two years ▲endless suspicions of special favors and collusion, we must appoint committee members who sincerely and professionally devote themselves to thinking hard about Gwangju.”

She also said, “Meetings should be made public so that the people of Gwangju can know exactly what debates lead to urban planning decisions and can timely raise problems or opinions,” adding, “We need to plan the city through diverse discussions about Gwangju’s present and future beyond interests or technical aspects.”

Furthermore, she added, “Citizens of Gwangju in 2023 want to know whether administrative decisions directly related to their lives, even if they do not align with their interests, were made through sufficient debate and verification,” and “The future Urban Planning Committee should be a place where all of us think about Gwangju together, and we must strive and make efforts toward that.”

In response, the Gwangju city government argued that, according to the National Land Planning Act and the Gwangju City Urban Planning Ordinance, meetings are basically subject to non-disclosure, which is the same in other metropolitan cities nationwide.

The city stated, “Agendas that could significantly harm public interest, such as causing real estate speculation, and identifiable information such as names and resident registration numbers are set to be non-disclosed,” and “To protect the free deliberation of committee members and personal information during meetings, minutes excluding the speakers’ names are disclosed one month after the conclusion of the review.”

It added, “We plan to disclose the committee’s operating rules, but if meetings are made public, issues such as prior disclosure of development plans and real estate speculation inducement arise, and outsiders could identify specific individuals,” emphasizing, “This could go against the legislative intent of higher laws, so the Urban Planning Ordinance stipulates that committee meetings are non-disclosed.”

Additionally, the city said, “Active professionals are restricted from being appointed as Urban Planning Committee members, and currently, there are no active professionals in the committee’s composition,” and “The committee is operated including private experts from academia with knowledge and experience in urban planning-related fields, as well as civic groups and city council members from the perspective of citizens’ right to know and open administration.”

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