Haenam-gun, Transforming Rural Vacant Houses into Rental Housing and Village Hotels

Public-Private Joint Vacant House Regeneration Project Business Agreement

Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do, is set to actively begin the regeneration of abandoned vacant houses in rural villages.

On the 12th, the county signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the Rural Vacant House Regeneration Project with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Jeollanam-do, E-Mart, and the Foundation for Cooperation between Large, Small and Medium Enterprises and Agriculture and Fisheries.

The vacant house regeneration project involves public and private sectors jointly investing the necessary resources to repurpose vacant houses into customized facilities needed in rural areas.

On the 7th, the vacant house regeneration project agreement ceremony was held at the government Sejong complex (from left: Kang Hyo-seok, Director of Agriculture, Livestock and Food, Jeollanam-do; Kim Cha-jin, Deputy Governor of Haenam; Lee Sang-man, Director of Rural Policy, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs; Hong Sung-soo, Executive Director of CSR, E-Mart; Cho Tae-yong, Head of the Foundation for Cooperation between Large, Small and Medium Enterprises and Agriculture and Fisheries)
Photo by Haenam-gun

In April, the government prepared measures to revitalize the maintenance of rural vacant houses and announced plans to reduce rural vacant houses by half by 2027. To this end, a public-private joint vacant house regeneration project involving vacant house owners, local governments, and companies is being promoted.

In particular, Haenam-gun was selected as the first target site and plans to proceed with the project ahead of the rest of the country, investing a total of 850 million KRW to remodel 20 vacant houses within the county.

The remodeled vacant houses will be developed into rental housing for return-to-farm and return-to-village households linked to the small school revitalization initiative led by Haenam-gun, as well as village hotels for visitors to rural experience villages.

According to the agreement, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Jeollanam-do, and Haenam-gun will comprehensively support project promotion by discovering vacant houses and linking government and local government projects. The private company E-Mart will support designated donations to the Agricultural and Fisheries Win-Win Cooperation Fund to provide learning materials within small schools, and the Foundation for Cooperation between Large, Small and Medium Enterprises and Agriculture and Fisheries plans to support vacant house regeneration using undesignated donations.

Depending on the project's success, there are plans to expand nationwide in the future, raising expectations that it will become a model case of recycling vacant houses as local resources.

Kim Cha-jin, Deputy County Governor, who participated in the signing ceremony, said, “It is very meaningful that Haenam-gun is the first to start the regeneration project for abandoned vacant houses causing various social problems,” and added, “We will cooperate with related organizations and companies to ensure smooth project implementation.”

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