Jeong Hee-seong "Geumta Site Development Should Be Promoted with a New Public Development Method"

Jeong Hee-seong, the progressive party preliminary candidate for Gwangsan-gu (Gap), Gwangju Metropolitan City, stated regarding the relocation issue of Kumho Tire's Gwangju factory, "It should not be pushed forward as a sudden political wind only during election times."

On the 31st, Jeong released a press statement saying, "Five years ago, during the tenure of Park Byung-gyu, Deputy Mayor of Gwangju for Economic Affairs, Kumho Tire was sold to the Chinese capital Double Star," and criticized, "Coincidentally again, under Park Byung-gyu’s administration as Gwangsan-gu mayor, development discussions about the Kumho Tire site are sprouting up like mushrooms."

He continued, "It is essential to first establish a body involving the actual stakeholders, the labor union and citizens, to conduct an open and transparent public discussion process regarding the development process and direction," and stated, "To resolve the numerous issues raised by the Kumho Tire relocation, such as allegations of 'meok-twi' (absconding with assets), favoritism controversies, job security for workers, and public development methods, it must not be promoted under government-led initiatives."

He also argued, "The most important thing is that for the relocation to become a genuine public development, the speculative capital profits generated from site development must be limited to an average capital return rate of within 5%." He warned that if development proceeds under the current method, only Double Star, which sold the factory, and speculative capital will be the winners.

Jeong gave an example, saying, "In the case of the recently developing Jeonnam Textile and Ilsin Textile sites, the development capital purchased the land for 685 billion KRW, and after changing the land use to commercial land, the land price rose to about 1.8 trillion KRW. According to the agreement, 54.45% of the profits, 589.9 billion KRW, will be donated publicly." He claimed, "Even with a rough calculation, the development capital earned about 540 billion KRW from the land price alone, and if apartment sales are included, the profit will exceed at least 1 trillion KRW."

He emphasized that for it to be a true public development, the design should allow only about 34 billion KRW, which is 5% of the 685 billion KRW investment, as the average capital return.

He added, "The Kumho Tire site relocation issue should be designed as a groundbreaking public development method that returns astronomical development profits to the residents of Gwangsan-gu, not as an election-driven redevelopment wind."

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