Follow-up Measures to the 8·8 Supply Plan... Strengthening Cooperation Between Seoul City and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

The Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport are strengthening cooperation to achieve results from the ‘8·8 Real Estate Measures’.

On the 19th, the city announced that it held a joint housing policy council with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport at Seoul City Hall to discuss the implementation plan for follow-up measures of the ‘Housing Supply Expansion Plan’ announced on the 8th, as well as additional policy cooperation tasks.

The government announced the release of the Greenbelt (development-restricted area) within the metropolitan area, discovering new housing sites totaling 80,000 units, with 50,000 units this year and 30,000 units next year. The photo shows the development-restricted area around Naegok-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, which is strongly considered for Greenbelt release as of the 9th. Photo by Yongjun Cho jun21@

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First, to supply housing through the release of the Greenbelt, they agreed to closely cooperate from the preliminary consultation stage for selecting new housing site candidates. After the candidate sites are announced in November, subsequent procedures such as district designation and district plan approval will proceed.

In addition, to proactively respond to real estate speculation, the two agencies will further strengthen cooperation in the process of designating land transaction permission zones within the city center. Along with the Financial Services Commission and the National Tax Service, a detailed planned investigation into abnormal land transactions in new housing site candidates will also be conducted.

Support will also be provided to accelerate reconstruction and redevelopment projects involving 370,000 households currently underway in Seoul. In areas with low profitability, when additional floor area ratio is allowed, the ‘adjustment coefficient for maintenance projects’ that relaxes the ratio of public contribution rental housing will be applied from next month, and the plan is to improve the profitability of maintenance projects by expanding general sale units instead of rental housing.

To normalize the supply of non-apartment housing, active consideration will be given to expanding the participation of the Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH Corporation) in the unlimited supply of newly purchased housing within Seoul. Furthermore, to supply housing in the city center desired by demanders such as newlyweds and youth, linkage plans between newly purchased rental housing and long-term lease housing will be reviewed, and complex development projects utilizing old government buildings will be actively discovered.

The council meeting was attended by Yoo Chang-soo, the 2nd Deputy Mayor of Seoul, Jin Hyun-hwan, the 1st Vice Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and housing policy officials from both agencies.

Jin Hyun-hwan, the 1st Vice Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said, “The Ministry and Seoul share the common goal of stabilizing national housing, and have jointly devised measures to dramatically expand housing supply such as accelerating reconstruction, public housing new purchases, and utilizing the Greenbelt.” He added, “We will closely cooperate with Seoul to sufficiently supply high-quality housing desired by the people by utilizing excellent locations in the Seoul city center, and actively cooperate to ensure smooth progress of long-term lease housing supply, one of Seoul’s key low birthrate countermeasure projects.”

Yoo Chang-soo, the 2nd Deputy Mayor of Seoul, said, “The city is swiftly implementing follow-up measures to ensure that housing supply measures produce visible effects,” and added, “Going forward, the city will do its best together with the Ministry to stabilize the real estate market through continuous housing supply.”

Meanwhile, Seoul and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport have built a cooperative relationship by preparing a housing supply activation plan last September with the goal of ‘supplying quality housing for residential stability’ and regularly holding housing policy councils. As a result, the recent 8·8 Real Estate Measures included the designation of new housing site candidates through Greenbelt release and the promotion of unlimited public new housing purchases.

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