Daejeon City, Renovation of Vacant Houses and Reconstruction of 'Social Infrastructure'

by Jeong Ilwoong

Published 24 Apr.2023 08:42(KST)

Daejeon City is promoting a vacant house maintenance project together with five autonomous districts.

The city announced on the 24th that it will invest a total project cost of 10 billion KRW from this year until 2027 to carry out the vacant house maintenance project.

The project will be implemented by purchasing vacant houses and then redeveloping them into social infrastructure facilities such as parking lots and parks.

The city plans to achieve two effects through the project: resolving social issues caused by abandoned vacant houses such as safety accident risks, crime occurrence, landscape damage, odor generation, and deterioration of residential environment, and expanding the insufficient urban social infrastructure to improve the urban and residential environment.

Previously, from 2016 until last year, the city promoted the project by supporting owners with demolition costs for vacant houses and allowing them to be used as shared spaces such as parking lots for a certain period (3 years) according to residents' needs before returning them to the owners.

However, starting this year, the project method has been improved to purchase and demolish vacant houses in urgent need of demolition, then create parking lots, small parks, etc., or remodel vacant houses into resident communal facilities (such as vegetable gardens, resting areas, community spaces, youth hub spaces) that residents can use permanently.

The project will proceed with the five autonomous districts receiving purchase applications from vacant house owners (in May), and the city holding a selection committee to select project targets (in June). The autonomous districts are expected to receive subsidies and begin full-scale vacant house purchase and maintenance projects from the second half of the year.

Jang Ilsun, Director of the City Urban Housing Bureau, said, “We expect to purchase and maintain around 40 vacant houses by 2027 through this project,” and added, “Since this can be a good opportunity for owners to dispose of vacant houses that are difficult to sell, we encourage many vacant house owners to show interest and participate.”