Changwon Special City, Long-term Drift Issue at Gusan Marine Tourism Complex Resolved

Prompt Response to Follow-up Procedures After Business Approval

Changwon Special City in Gyeongnam has received a 'conditional approval' from the Central Land Expropriation Committee of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport for the Gusan Marine Tourism Complex Development Project, breaking the long-term stalemate. Accordingly, the committee has actively begun preparing concrete measures to fulfill the conditions set forth.

Changwon Special City Marine Port and Fisheries Bureau is holding a briefing related to Gusan Marine Tourism Complex.

The committee recognized the public interest and urgency of Changwon City's proposed measures to secure public benefits, including promoting balanced national development and revitalizing the regional economy through the establishment of comprehensive tourism infrastructure, as well as expanding the tourism industry in the Gyeongnam area, and passed the project with conditional approval on October 26.

The main conditions set by the committee include preparing specific plans to activate facilities other than the golf course, reflecting the golf course land use plan at 30% or less, and for lands where consultation was inevitably not reached, specifying reasons for non-consultation and applying for expropriation decisions accordingly.

The city considers it urgent to devise activation plans for facilities other than the golf course, such as the Kids Theme Park, Magic World, and Adventure Town within the Adventure Experience Zone, as well as the corporate training center in the Corporate Training Zone. Facilities targeting children require rapid responses to sudden trend changes, and since Robot Land is located near the project site, the city sees the need to maximize the advantages of the location by linking themes and complementing functions. Additionally, regarding the corporate training center, there is a severe shortage of training facilities for many companies and workers based in Changwon, so the city intends to actively cooperate with private business operators to attract companies and find activation plans.

Accordingly, the city is establishing a revised development plan to reflect the land use plan with the golf course land ratio at 30% or less, one of the main conditions, and plans to obtain approval after consultations with related agencies. The city also announced that it is coordinating detailed schedules with the private business operator, Samjeong Enterprise Gusan Consortium.

Furthermore, to improve the rate of land compensation negotiations, the city plans to actively negotiate and purchase lands that cannot be acquired (1.9% due to death, unregistered status, seizure, etc.) and lands without agreement (1.6% due to dissatisfaction with compensation or demands for access road construction) in accordance with relevant laws to ensure proper compensation for private property, thereby maximizing the negotiated compensation rate.

Changwon City plans to further specify and formalize the commitments submitted by the private business operator, which include designating and operating a public golf course as a public ownership device, donating scholarships for 30 years, employing local residents, prioritizing the purchase of local agricultural and marine products, and donating green spaces. The city will negotiate with the private business operator to amend the implementation agreement accordingly. For matters requiring mid- to long-term management, such as establishing and operating a scholarship foundation and managing public golf course fees, the city stated it will continuously seek management plans through separate operational agreements.

Kim Jong-pil, Director of the Marine, Port, and Fisheries Bureau, said, “We will accelerate the development to provide leisure and recreation spaces for citizens and tourists visiting Changwon by building comprehensive tourism infrastructure utilizing the region’s natural resources, and thoroughly prepare for the revival of the tourism industry as a key axis of the South Coast Tourism Belt.”

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