LH Gwangju Jeonnam 'Regional Cooperation Forum' Held... Discussion on Current Issues

Published 04 Dec.2023 09:03(KST)

LH Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Headquarters (Head Kim Jae-kyung) held the ‘2023 Second Half LH Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Cooperation Forum’ on the 28th of last month.

According to the Gwangju-Jeonnam Headquarters on the 4th, this forum was organized to discuss current issues in the Gwangju and Jeonnam regions following the first half regional cooperation forum in June and to set future directions for LH project implementation.

The LH Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Headquarters held the "2023 Second Half LH Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Cooperation Forum" on the 28th of last month.
[Photo by LH Gwangju-Jeonnam]

The ‘LH Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Cooperation Forum’ is chaired jointly by the LH Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Headquarters Director and Professor Kim Il-tae of Chonnam National University, and is composed of experts from various fields including local governments, regional academia, and local public corporations.

At the forum, Professor Shin Woo-jin of Chonnam National University gave a presentation on ‘Problems and Improvement Measures of Regional Housing Cooperatives,’ focusing on regional housing cooperative projects, which have rapidly increased nationwide but are facing issues due to insufficient institutional safeguards.

Additionally, Senior Researcher Kim Myung-sik of the LH Land and Housing Institute presented on ‘Korean-style Retirement Complex as a Regional Spatial Policy to Respond to the Local Extinction Crisis’ to explore elderly-friendly housing projects in response to the large influx of retired baby boomer generation into the elderly population. An in-depth discussion among the attendees followed on this topic.

The committee members proposed policy measures such as the legalization of the ‘Cooperative Establishment Promotion Committee’ and institutional improvements regarding the land acquisition ratio at each project stage to prevent damages in regional housing cooperative projects.

They pointed out that most victims of regional housing cooperative projects are low-income, homeless citizens and highlighted problems with the private-sector-led housing supply in the Gwangju area, emphasizing the need for a certain level of public housing supply annually. They also called for strengthening the roles of LH and local public corporations in this regard.

Furthermore, in response to Korea’s rapid transition into a super-aged society and the local extinction crisis, the necessity of creating a ‘Korean-style Retirement Complex’ was agreed upon, while concerns were raised about the main resident group being designed as middle class.

Opinions were expressed that additional research is needed to establish a project model that benefits homeless low-income citizens in line with LH’s fundamental role in implementing public projects.

Director Kim Jae-kyung stated, “We will continue to promote public housing supply and region-tailored projects for residential stability and regional development, striving to strengthen the role of the public sector. We will also do our best to build a regional cooperation network with local governments, regional academia, and local public corporations to create growth engines for the Gwangju-Jeonnam region.”