Ungdong District Golf Course Registration Cancellation Temporarily Suspended ... Operations to Continue Until Final Ruling

The golf course at Jinhae Ocean Resort, which had its registration revoked by the Busan-Jinhae Free Economic Zone Authority, will be able to continue operating for the time being.

The 1st Administrative Division of the Busan District Court ruled in favor of Jinhae Ocean Resort, the private developer of the Ungdong 1 District in Changwon, Gyeongnam, in a case seeking to suspend the execution of the conditional registration revocation imposed by the Free Economic Zone Authority on the golf course business.

On the 2nd, the court stated, "The effect of the conditional registration revocation imposed by the Free Economic Zone Authority on Jinhae Ocean Resort's sports facility business is suspended until 30 days after the ruling in the lawsuit regarding the cancellation of the conditional registration revocation of the sports facility business."

The court explained, "Based on the overall records and hearings, there is concern that the Free Economic Zone Authority's action could cause irreparable harm to the private developer," adding, "There is an urgent need to suspend the effect of the Authority's action to prevent this."

The court further added, "It is also difficult to conclude that suspending the effect of the Authority's action would have a significant impact on the public interest."

Development site of Ungdong 1 District, Jinhae, Changwon-si, Gyeongnam.
[Photo by Changwon Special City Hall]

The Ungdong 1 District integrated tourism and leisure complex development project aims to build accommodations, leisure, and resort facilities on a 2.25 million square meter site in Sudodong, Jinhae-gu, Changwon. After construction began in November 2013, only the golf course was completed in December 2017, and the project has since stalled.

Previously, on July 16, the Free Economic Zone Authority issued a conditional registration revocation for the Jinhae Ocean Aramir Golf Course.

The reason was that Jinhae Ocean, the private developer of the Ungdong 1 District project, had not pursued any part of the project other than the completion of the golf course, such as accommodations, leisure and cultural facilities, and sports and entertainment facilities.

Since December 2017, no other parts of the project have been carried out after the golf course was completed. Although the operation of the golf course was permitted on the condition of early project completion, this condition was not met.

In response, Jinhae Ocean filed a lawsuit at the Busan District Court on the 18th of last month to cancel the Authority's registration revocation and also applied for a provisional injunction to suspend the execution of the revocation.

On the 23rd of the same month, the Busan District Court granted the injunction, temporarily suspending the effect of the Authority's action until the 6th of this month.

On March 30 last year, the Free Economic Zone Authority also stripped Changwon City and the Gyeongnam Development Corporation, joint project operators, of their project operator status, citing responsibility for the prolonged delay. Changwon City has since contested this in court.

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