Icheon City Selects 'Daewol-myeon Gushiri' as Alternative Site for Cremation Facility

Announcement of Evaluation Results for 3 Candidate Sites
Incentives Worth 10 Billion KRW Provided

Gyeonggi-do Icheon City has selected 'Daewol-myeon Gusi-ri' as an alternative site for the municipal cremation facility. This comes six months after the cancellation of the cremation facility project in Sujeong-ri, Bubal-eup last September. The city will provide a total of 10 billion KRW in incentives to residents of the new candidate site and neighboring areas.

Residents of Gusi-ri, Daewol-myeon, Icheon City, are welcoming the site inspection team for the cremation facility candidate site in Icheon City. On the 12th, the city officially selected this area as the new cremation facility site.
[Photo by Icheon City]

On the 12th, Icheon City announced that through a review following the call for candidates for the cremation facility installation site, the final project site was selected as 'Daewol-myeon Gusi-ri 60-6 and 4 other parcels.'

Previously, from January to the end of last month, four locations applied for the cremation facility installation site call, including Daewol-myeon Gusi-ri, Daewol-myeon Dori-ri, Yul-myeon Wolpo 1-ri, and Hyojawon Co., Ltd. The city excluded Hyojawon, which did not meet the document screening criteria, and conducted on-site investigations, proposal presentations, and final reviews for the remaining three sites, ultimately selecting the project site.

The city conducted quantitative and qualitative evaluations on 10 items reflecting social, geographical, and economic conditions for the three candidate sites. According to the city, Daewol-myeon Gusi-ri, the final selected site, received high marks because it is close to Provincial Road No. 337, which reduces project costs such as road construction and installation of gas, electricity, and water facilities.

The city added that the site’s proximity to memorial houses, natural burial grounds, and other funeral facilities within Icheon City, as well as its geographical location at the midpoint of Icheon City, making it convenient, were also reasons for its selection.

On the other hand, Daewol-myeon Dori-ri was excluded due to safety concerns related to the installation of military base hazardous facilities on adjacent land, and Yul-myeon Wolpo 1-ri was excluded due to opposition complaints from the neighboring Chungbuk Eumseong-gun, the city explained.

The city plans to provide a total of 10 billion KRW in incentives as resident wish projects to the hosting area, adjacent areas, and the relevant myeon, and to install infrastructure such as resident convenience facilities. The incentives will be distributed as 3 billion KRW to the hosting area, 4 billion KRW to surrounding areas, and 3 billion KRW to the relevant eup, myeon, and dong.

The city plans to start construction of the new cremation facility in April next year and complete it by March 2026. Kim Kyung-hee, mayor of Icheon City, said, "We will spare no effort to actively support the cremation facility construction so that it can serve not only as a simple funeral facility but also as a driving force for regional development."

Meanwhile, since 2019, Icheon City has been promoting the construction of a municipal cremation facility and selected 'Sujeong-ri, Bubal-eup' as a candidate site through a public contest in August of the following year. However, residents of Maehwa-ri, Sejongdaewang-myeon, Yeoju City, adjacent to the candidate site, strongly opposed the construction of the cremation facility, and a Gyeonggi-do audit requested by 189 Icheon citizens citing violations of the Local Finance Act confirmed illegal and improper matters such as budget carryover and improper internal review of investment projects, and improper procedures in strategic environmental assessment.

Furthermore, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety issued a legal interpretation stating that the announcement made under the name of the chairman of the Cremation Facility Construction Promotion Committee, not under the mayor’s name at the time of the candidate site call, "has no legal effect," leading the city to officially announce the cancellation of the project last September.

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