Sehoon Oh Visits Baeksa Village Demolition Site: "To Be Reborn as a Symbol of Integration"

Demolition Site Inspection Marks Project's First Major Progress in 16 Years
Construction to Begin in December; Move-in Target Set for 2029

Aerial view of the redevelopment project in Baeksa Village, Nowon District, Seoul. Seoul City

Sehoon Oh, the Mayor of Seoul, visited Baeksa Village, the city's last hillside shantytown, which is set to be reborn as a residential complex with over 3,100 households, and pledged active support for the redevelopment project.

On the morning of September 9, Mayor Oh visited Baeksa Village in Junggye-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul, to inspect the demolition process and expressed his commitment to supporting housing supply in the area.

Mayor Oh stated, "Baeksa Village will no longer be a hillside shantytown, but will be reborn as a 'symbolic space of social integration' where people of various generations and backgrounds live together without barriers, with a focus on resident convenience and quality of life." He emphasized, "We will carry out the project transparently and swiftly so that by 2029, this place can become a new foundation of hope, ensuring a seamless housing supply."

Baeksa Village, located at 30-3, Junggye-bon-dong, Nowon-gu, was formed in the 1960s when about 1,100 evictees from areas such as Cheonggyecheon and Yeongdeungpo settled near Bulamsan Mountain due to urban development. In August, a revised development plan was approved to create a complex with up to 35 floors, 26 apartment buildings, and 3,178 households (including 565 rental units). This improved the project's viability by securing 741 additional units compared to the previous plan of 2,437 households (including 484 rental units).

Baeksa Village was designated as a redevelopment and maintenance zone in 2009 and, in 2012, became the first residential preservation project in Korea. However, due to issues such as the separation of for-sale and rental housing, low profitability, and changes in project operators, the project had stalled for 16 years.

To address this, the Seoul Metropolitan Government converted residential preservation land into public housing sites in cooperation with Seoul Housing & Communities Corporation (SH), integrated for-sale and rental housing through a social mix, applied a project profitability adjustment factor, and upgraded zoning regulations to improve the project's viability.

Additionally, the city will support tenants living in unauthorized buildings by helping them relocate to nearby rental housing and will secure both on-site and off-site rental units to enable them to resettle after completion of the project.

Since the start of full-scale demolition in May, more than half of the buildings have been demolished, and the dismantling work is scheduled to be completed by December, after which construction will begin. The target move-in date is 2029.

Meanwhile, since July, Mayor Oh has been actively promoting housing supply, visiting eight sites, including the Jayang 4-dong redevelopment zone, the Sindang 9-district maintenance project, the Mok-dong 6th complex reconstruction site in Yangcheon-gu, and the Samhwan Dobong redevelopment in Dobong-gu.

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