Follow-up measures to Aug. 13 supply plan take effect

Time from district designation to ground-breaking cut by 20 months

LH chief visits Gwangmyeong-Siheung compensation site

The headquarters of Korea Land and Housing Corporation. [Yonhap]
The headquarters of Korea Land and Housing Corporation. [Yonhap]

Korea Land and Housing Corporation is undertaking a sweeping organizational overhaul to accelerate housing ground-breakings, with a sharp reduction in land compensation procedures at its core.

LH said Wednesday it would expand its compensation workforce, restructure its operations and shift to parallel processing to speed up large-scale housing supply in the Greater Seoul area and beyond. The measures are designed to align with the government's Aug. 13 rapid housing supply plan.

LH will concentrate a total of 344 staff on compensation work at major housing supply sites in the metropolitan area, redeploying experienced personnel from its head office and non-metropolitan branches, first-half new hires and contract workers. It will also recruit 250 additional compensation specialists this month. A new head-office task force — the Compensation Acceleration Support TF — staffed by specialists will handle complex bottlenecks including delays in state-owned land and business-loss compensation reviews and administrative backlogs.

The reinforced workforce will wrap up compensation and land acquisition for third-generation new towns, which are in the final stages of relocation, while keeping compensation on track at ongoing project sites including Gwangmyeong-Siheung and Seoul's Seoripul. For newly launched compensation districts in particular, the time from district designation to construction ground-breaking will be cut from the current 44 months to 24 months.

To achieve that reduction, LH will move away from sequential processes and pursue simultaneous, parallel operations. By launching preliminary surveys early and conducting appraisals concurrently, the period from survey start to the opening of negotiated compensation will shrink from 21 months to nine. The compensation implementation period — from negotiated compensation through adjudication — will also be shortened from 12 months to nine.

LH will also introduce incentives and penalties. A cooperation incentive scheme — offering payments to landowners who cooperate during the preliminary survey, negotiation and voluntary relocation stages — will be rolled out as soon as an amendment to the Special Act on Public Housing takes effect. Landowners who refuse to hand over land or property after receiving compensation will face financial penalties including compulsory performance fees, aimed at shortening the relocation timeline.

LH President Lee Seong-hun visited the Gwangmyeong-Siheung public housing district Wednesday to inspect compensation progress firsthand. The site is the largest of the third-generation new towns, covering 12.71 million square meters and slated to provide 67,000 homes. Negotiated compensation began there in July with a ground-breaking targeted for next year, and the district has recorded a contract signing rate of about 27 percent of landowners within a month — representing roughly 2.4 trillion won ($1.75 billion) in compensation — following an expansion of its dedicated team from one team of 21 staff to two teams of 41.

"Compensation is both the starting point of housing supply and the key stage that determines how fast we can move," Lee said. "Building on this overhaul, which was carried out with an eye toward field support, we will fulfill our critical mission of expanding housing supply without any setbacks."


hwshin@heraldcorp.com