Scope of Busan's waterfront management plan [Provided by Busan City]
Scope of Busan's waterfront management plan [Provided by Busan City]

Busan is moving to bring its entire 680-kilometer waterfront under a unified management framework — the city's first attempt to treat its coastal and river edges as a single, coherent system rather than separate zones governed by different rules.

The city announced Wednesday that it will hold a public hearing on the draft "Busan Waterfront Management Master Plan" at 3 p.m. Friday at the international conference hall of City Hall, gathering input from residents and experts. At the hearing, a project engineer from Dohwa Engineering will present the plan via video, followed by a panel discussion chaired by Choi Yeol, the plan's chief coordinator and a professor, with professors Lee Seung-hee and Choi Song-hyeon, architect Ahn Yong-dae, and Park Bong-cheol, a senior research fellow at the Busan Development Institute, serving as panelists.

The plan stems from a recognized problem: Busan's roughly 400 kilometers of coastline and 280 kilometers of riverfront have been managed under different systems and standards, making an integrated approach difficult. The city intends to redefine the value of waterfront space — focusing on a roughly 500-meter buffer zone from the water's edge — and establish Busan's first comprehensive waterfront management guidelines applicable consistently across urban planning and development projects.

The draft plan sets the vision of "Global Busan connected along its waterways — a waterfront city where people and nature meet," and proposes five goals: a healthy waterfront, an open waterfront, a vibrant waterfront, a safe waterfront and an inclusive waterfront. The guiding principles are resilience, publicness and vitality. The overarching aim is to expand the waterfront's role beyond a space for development or recreation into a public commons where nature and the city coexist and all residents can enjoy in their daily lives.

The city will divide Busan's waterfront into five zones — the West Nakdong River zone, the Nakdong River zone, the Suyeong River zone, the Gijang coastal zone and the Busan Port coastal zone — and develop tailored management and development strategies for each. Across all zones, the city plans to pursue waterfront ecosystem conservation and green network development, expanded public access and public spaces, activation of cultural, tourism and leisure activities along the water, stronger disaster preparedness against flooding and coastal hazards, and the establishment of a sustainable waterfront management system built with residents.

Building on the master plan, the city will separately develop "common waterfront guidelines" for direct application to urban planning and development projects, strengthening the plan's enforceability. Waterfront management principles will also be incorporated into higher-level and related plans — including the parks and green space master plan, the landscape plan, and the urban and residential environment improvement master plan — and the city will review whether key waterfront zones should be designated as special districts.

In addition, the city will require that waterfront management standards be applied during the review processes of various committees overseeing urban planning, landscape and architecture, and will propose applying waterfront-specific incentives during the preparation of district unit plans. A separate management checklist will also be introduced for small-scale development to ensure individual projects harmonize with the surrounding waterfront environment.

After incorporating feedback gathered through the public hearing and online channels, the city plans to finalize the master plan by the end of this year following administrative procedures including a report to the city council and consultation with the urban planning committee.

"This master plan is significant in that it connects Busan's 680 kilometers of waterfront as a single flow and establishes Busan's own waterfront management standards — ones that balance development and conservation, use and safety," said Baek Myeong-gi, director of the city's urban planning bureau. "We will reflect the diverse opinions of residents and experts as we build Busan into a global waterfront city where people and nature thrive together."


kaf2002@heraldcorp.com