Jin Kyo-hoon, district mayor of Gangseo-gu, visits the damaged section of Yeomchang Park to receive a briefing on the redevelopment plan. [Gangseo-gu]
Jin Kyo-hoon, district mayor of Gangseo-gu, visits the damaged section of Yeomchang Park to receive a briefing on the redevelopment plan. [Gangseo-gu]

A long-standing demand of Gangseo-gu residents in Seoul is set to be fulfilled after the damaged section of Yeomchang Neighborhood Park was included in a new list of candidate sites for public housing supply.

According to Gangseo-gu on Thursday, the site will undergo public hearings and a review by the Central Urban Planning Committee before being formally designated as a public housing district, at which point full-scale development will begin. Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) will serve as the project developer, overseeing integrated procedures including district designation, site planning, land preparation and housing construction, with ground-breaking targeted for 2029.

Yeomchang Neighborhood Park covers a total area of 111,769.4 square meters, of which the project site — excluding forested areas — spans 50,711 square meters. Plans call for creating an open green space connected to the existing park, forming a pleasant residential environment accessible to both local residents and future occupants.

The area is currently designated as a park, but it has sat in disrepair for 20 years following the closure of businesses within the park and the formation of a cut slope on Yeomchangsan during earlier development. Having lost its function as a park, the site has drawn persistent complaints over safety concerns and its unsightly appearance along the Han River waterfront.

Development activity within the park has in principle been prohibited. An exception exists under a "private park development" scheme, in which a private developer purchases the park land, develops 70 percent as a park and donates it to the local government, and develops the remaining 30 percent for non-park use. In 1990, the district approved such a project on the condition that the developer build community facilities including a youth cultural center, a senior lounge and an outdoor performance venue — but the developer never fulfilled those conditions and operated only a golf driving range.

The district revoked the developer's designation in 2006 and ordered a forced closure in 2009, but development effectively stalled as the project site was large, land ownership was fragmented and ownership changes compounded the difficulties.

To resolve the issue, the district established a dedicated urban planning and development unit through an organizational restructuring in 2024, then expanded it to a bureau-level division the following year to concentrate administrative resources. Officials repeatedly approached the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Seoul Housing & Communities Corporation (SH), eventually arriving at a public development solution.

"The Yeomchang Neighborhood Park redevelopment project is both a starting point for balanced regional development and the fruit of residents' long-held hopes," district mayor Jin Kyo-hoon said. "We will spare no administrative support to ensure the project proceeds without a hitch."

Meanwhile, the government announced Thursday it would supply more than 230,000 additional housing units across the greater Seoul metropolitan area to stabilize the jeonse and monthly rent market as well as the sales market. The plan designates 27,000 units of new residential land in high-demand locations — including Namyangju in Gyeonggi Province, within 30 minutes of Seoul, the transit-oriented area around Gwangju Station in Gyeonggi Province, and Yeomchang-dong in Gangseo-gu, Seoul. The government also said it would announce additional candidate sites capable of supplying 73,000 units within the year, bringing the total new housing supply to more than 100,000 units.


cook@heraldcorp.com