Icheon-si, New Candidate Site Solicited for Crematorium Four Months After Cancellation

'Consent from Adjacent Areas' Condition... Minimizing Resident Conflicts
100 Billion Won Incentive Provided to Applicants and Adjacent Area Residents

Gyeonggi-do Icheon City has reopened the call for candidates for a municipal cremation facility site. This comes just over four months after the plan for a cremation facility in Bubal-eup was scrapped last September due to opposition from residents of the neighboring Yeoju City.

According to Icheon City on the 14th, the city has been conducting a public contest to select a candidate site for the cremation facility from the 12th of this month until the 29th of next month.

According to the contest guidelines, applications for candidate sites must have the consent of more than 70% of households in the local community and the agreement of representatives of more than 60% of residents in villages bordering the application area.

The contest also includes a 10 billion KRW resident incentive plan to minimize the damage to residents in the selected and adjacent areas caused by hosting the cremation facility. The resident incentives are distributed as 3 billion KRW to the hosting area, 3 billion KRW to the relevant eup/myeon/dong, and 4 billion KRW to the surrounding areas.

The city has particularly expanded the application targets to include not only villages in the relevant area but also private corporations to provide opportunities for private sector participation, aiming for a transparent contest.

To this end, the city plans to hold business briefing sessions by visiting 14 eup/myeon/dong during the contest period.

After receiving applications, the city plans to finalize the project site by March through document screening and on-site investigations. Construction is scheduled to begin in April next year, with completion targeted for March 2026.

Icheon City's push for a cremation facility dates back to 2019. In August of the following year, Bubal-eup Sujeong-ri was selected as the candidate site through a public contest, and plans to build the cremation facility were pursued.

However, the plan faced setbacks due to opposition from residents. Residents of Maehwa-ri, Sejongdaewang-myeon, Yeoju City, which is adjacent, opposed the plan, and 189 Icheon citizens requested an audit from Gyeonggi-do citing violations of the Local Finance Act.

Eventually, in August last year, Gyeonggi-do announced audit results that included illegal and improper matters in the cremation facility promotion process, such as the carryover of investment project budget allocation, improper internal review, and improper procedures in strategic environmental assessment.

Additionally, there was a claim that the announcement made under the name of the chairman of the Cremation Facility Promotion Committee, rather than the mayor, during the candidate site contest was invalid. At the end of July last year, the city inquired with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety about the legal effect of this matter, and the ministry recently replied that “announcements made under the name of the chairman of the advisory Promotion Committee have no legal effect,” which ultimately led to the decision to scrap the project.

The city’s explicit requirement for consent from residents of adjacent areas in this contest is also interpreted as an intention to improve the issues that arose during the previous project promotion process.

An official from Icheon City said, "The absence of a cremation facility in the jurisdiction and the increasing demand for cremation are common challenges faced by local governments nationwide," adding, "We will continue to communicate with residents to ensure the smooth implementation of the project."

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