Mayor Kim Donggeun: "Returned Sites Must Not Be Neglected... National-Level Transformation Needed"

Uijeongbu City Visits Returned Camp Jackson Site
Inspection Conducted with Ministry of National Defense Officials
"Uijeongbu Must No Longer Bear the Burden"
City Urges Government for Institutional Reforms

On July 24, the city of Uijeongbu in Gyeonggi Province (Mayor Kim Donggeun) visited the returned Camp Jackson site to inspect the current state of the long-neglected former US military base with officials from the Ministry of National Defense, and strongly urged the government to implement effective institutional reforms and countermeasures.

Kim Donggeun, mayor of Uijeongbu, visited Camp Jackson, a returned military site, on the 24th to inspect the current status of the long-neglected US military base site together with officials from the Ministry of National Defense. Provided by Uijeongbu City

This on-site inspection was conducted in response to the recent directive from the President at a Cabinet meeting to "proactively review the issue of returned US military bases in northern Gyeonggi Province," and was carried out to initiate a full-fledged response at the municipal level.

For decades, Uijeongbu City has faced restrictions on urban space utilization due to the presence of numerous US military bases within the city center, resulting in structural difficulties in expanding infrastructure and establishing industrial sites.

As a result, compared to neighboring cities and counties, the city’s residential and industrial infrastructure is relatively underdeveloped, and the region continues to experience complex decline, including worsening population aging and outmigration.

Currently, most of the seven returned US military bases can only be utilized through a uniform, sales-oriented approach, causing delays in development. If the municipality purchases the land directly, it faces significant challenges in long-term planning due to a 10-year use restriction and subsidy claw-back provisions. Private sales are also virtually impossible due to lack of business feasibility and market uncertainty.

Accordingly, the city has proposed various institutional reforms to the government, including: free leasing, long-term rental, long-term installment payments, expanded national funding, support for land acquisition costs, and amendments to relevant laws and regulations.

At the site, Mayor Kim Donggeun stated, "The region that has sacrificed for national security must now be reborn as a hub for future industries," adding, "We must not settle for simple compensation, but transition into a self-sustaining city by attracting businesses and building an industrial ecosystem."

Uijeongbu City is working to attract companies in future industries such as biohealth, digital content, and AI to returned sites like Camp Jackson. Through these efforts, the city aims to create jobs, improve living conditions for young people, and restore the industrial base to revitalize the local economy in a tangible way.

However, securing business sites remains difficult because key administrative procedures such as industrial land designation, infrastructure installation, lifting of development restrictions, and allocation of industrial quotas are overlapped by regulations in the Seoul metropolitan area.

To overcome these structural constraints, the city continues to propose amendments to relevant laws and rationalization of regulations, and maintains that strategic national-level support is urgently needed to transform the returned sites into advanced industrial hubs.

Mayor Kim Donggeun emphasized, "There are clear structural limitations that local governments cannot handle alone," and added, "It is now time for the national government to step in directly to reform the overall structure of laws, systems, and finances."

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