Gyeonggi-do Confirms 7,371 Suspected Illegal Activities in Development Restriction Zones via Aerial Photography

Aerial Photo Distortion Cases of Buildings

Gyeonggi Province identified 7,371 suspected illegal activities within development-restricted zones through changes in terrain and objects observed in aerial photographs and instructed city and county governments to conduct on-site investigations.

Earlier, from March to August this year, Gyeonggi Province compared last year's aerial photographs with previous ones to detect changes in terrain and objects within development-restricted zones across the province. The number of suspected illegal cases increased by 335 compared to last year (7,036 cases).

By city and county, Namyangju-si had the highest number with 1,227 cases, followed by ▲Siheung-si with 1,052 cases ▲Goyang-si with 789 cases ▲Gimpo-si with 726 cases. By type of activity, new construction of buildings or vinyl greenhouses accounted for 4,657 cases, making up 63% of the total. Landform changes accounted for 2,630 cases (36%).

The confirmed changes will be investigated on-site by the mayors and county heads to verify illegality. For illegal activities involving construction or landform changes without permits or notifications, strict administrative measures such as restoration orders, imposition of fines for non-compliance, and prosecution will be enforced.

Gyeonggi Province initially planned to conduct aerial photograph analysis every two years, but since 2021, it has been carried out annually to swiftly crack down on illegal activities in development-restricted zones and respond strictly. Especially from this year, instead of notifying all cities and counties collectively after completing change detection in October, the process has been advanced to start on-site inspections and administrative actions sequentially from June for those cities and counties where analysis has been completed.

Aerial photograph analysis has the advantage of detecting terrain and object changes over a wide area in a short period with minimal personnel, allowing monitoring of every corner of development-restricted zones, including areas difficult for responsible officials to patrol.

Ryu Ho-guk, Director of Regional Policy at Gyeonggi Province, said, "Although Gyeonggi Province has a large area of development-restricted zones, the number of enforcement officers is very limited, so detecting changes through aerial photographs saves time and costs." He added, "Illegal changes in building use and illegal storage inside greenhouses, which cannot be detected by aerial or drone images, will be monitored without blind spots through joint on-site inspections by the province and city/county governments and frequent patrols."

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