Oh Se-hoon Criticizes Jung Won-oh's Pledge for 10-Year Reconstruction: "Which Part Will You Shorten?"

Mentioned at the Editors' Association Forum on May 14

"If given the opportunity to debate, I definitely want to ask"

Oh Se-hoon, the People Power Party candidate for Seoul mayor, criticized Jung Won-oh, the Democratic Party candidate for Seoul mayor, over his pledge to resolve the reconstruction process within 10 years, stating, "Where exactly will the time be cut?"

On May 14, Oh Se-hoon, the People Power Party candidate for Seoul mayor, held a "Press Conference Urging the Public Ahead of the June 3 Local Elections" in front of Seoul City Hall. 2026.05.14 Photo by Dongjoo Yoon

On May 14, at a forum hosted by the Korea News Editors' Association at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Jung-gu, Seoul, Oh was asked, "Candidate Jung has said he will shorten the redevelopment and reconstruction procedures to complete them within 10 years. What is your opinion on this?" He responded as follows.

Oh explained, "During my past five years as Seoul mayor, it was a constant struggle to shorten the redevelopment and reconstruction periods," adding, "I often say that the time was squeezed as if wringing a dry towel."

He continued, "It takes about 4 to 5 years just for everyone to move out, demolish the buildings, and build new ones. Logically, it's impossible to have all residents move out at the same time," adding, "Since contract periods expire at different times, it takes at least 1 year and 6 months to 2 years just for that process."

Oh elaborated, "There are the management disposition approval and the project implementation approval. For example, if you want to build 5,000 households, you need to determine how many buildings of how many floors are necessary, how to allocate the floor space, and how to calculate construction costs. Only once this plan is drawn up can you move on to the next management disposition approval. Then, you must assign each household to a location and decide on the contributions based on floor space, requiring highly detailed planning," he said. "Before the project implementation approval, you have to form a promotion committee, get consent to form an association, and go through the maintenance planning stage. These steps must proceed in order, which is why the process has taken 20 years up to now."

He added, "In the past five years, we managed to reduce this process to 12 years. The initial 5 years required to form the promotion committee and the association have been compressed to about 2 years," he said. "A law allowing project implementation approval and management disposition approval to be processed together has been enacted and can be applied from next year, but there are practical doubts about its feasibility. It requires extraordinary efforts from Seoul city officials and district office staff, representing a significant administrative change, so I believe a pilot period is absolutely necessary."

Oh further pointed out, "Anyone who fully understands the entire process would know that it is not something you can confidently say, 'I can do it within 10 years' from the outset," adding, "I did not see Candidate Jung provide a detailed explanation of that part this morning."

He also said, "If I have the opportunity to debate, I would definitely like to ask which stage or which part he plans to shorten in order to reduce the period by another two years compared to me," adding, "I hope you will objectively consider whether it is reasonable for a Democratic Party mayor, who has historically been very hostile to readjustment, reconstruction, and redevelopment, to now claim, 'I can do it.'"

Earlier that morning, Candidate Jung had stated at the same Korea News Editors' Association forum that he would resolve reconstruction, which currently takes anywhere from 12 to as long as 20 years, within 10 years.

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