Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon delivers opening remarks at a public forum on real estate normalization held at Seoul City Hall on Thursday. [Seoul Metropolitan Government]
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon delivers opening remarks at a public forum on real estate normalization held at Seoul City Hall on Thursday. [Seoul Metropolitan Government]

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon pushed back sharply Thursday against criticism from within the People Power Party that he bears responsibility for the capital's housing supply shortage, saying the accusation had gone "beyond the limits of shamelessness."

Oh posted on his social media account Thursday saying he "could not believe his ears" when he heard remarks by Democratic Party floor leader Han Byung-do. "Do you think the public does not know who is responsible for the current supply crisis?" he wrote.

He said it was former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon who had treated redevelopment and reconstruction projects as "speculation," halted urban renewal work and, as a result, "clearly destroyed the foundation of housing supply in Seoul."

"During the 10 years of Democratic Party city administration, 389 redevelopment and reconstruction projects were canceled," Oh said. "As a result, Seoul lost the opportunity to build 430,000 units of housing. They not only dried up the seeds of supply but sprayed herbicide on top of it — and now they want to pin the blame for the resulting supply cliff on someone else. The shamelessness has gone too far."

He also took aim at the current government, saying it was "even more absurd" that the president and the Democratic Party were making "the preposterous claim that redevelopment and reconstruction have a weak supply effect and may actually reduce the housing stock."

Oh said a Seoul Metropolitan Government analysis of 59 urban renewal projects completed over the past three years showed that redevelopment produced a net increase of 7,000 units — a 27.4 percent gain — while reconstruction added 13,000 units, a 44.2 percent net increase. "Even now, the Democratic Party is blocking Seoul's urban renewal projects while denying facts borne out by data — and they have the nerve to turn around and blame us?" he said.

"Rather than scheming to dodge public criticism, they should listen even now to the desperate voices of residents and communities waiting for urban renewal projects," Oh said. He added that the more the party repeated "blame-shifting and distorted claims" instead of making a full public apology for the supply crisis, "the clearer it becomes that they have no genuine commitment to housing supply."

Earlier Thursday, Han Byung-do, acting leader and floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, said at a floor strategy meeting that Oh was "the very person who stirred up market confusion" by lifting and then reinstating land transaction permit zones in February, and was now "raising his voice to attack the government." Han called on the People Power Party to cooperate in holding a plenary session on Aug. 13 and passing related legislation if it was "sincere about housing supply."

Democratic Party policy committee chairwoman Han Jeong-ae also said the real estate forum Oh hosted Thursday "was dominated by criticism for criticism's sake." While agreeing that measures to ease the jeonse and monthly rent crisis were needed, she said she "regrets that the forum was solely aimed at promoting private urban renewal projects and criticizing the government's tax reform proposal."

Han Jeong-ae added that "the housing supply cliff in Seoul is also a result of what Oh has created," and said the party and government "will do their best to swiftly prepare measures such as rental housing that can be supplied quickly to ease the difficulties in the jeonse and monthly rent market."


jshan@heraldcorp.com