Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon criticized the president's view of housing policy and called on him to admit the policy had failed and change course. Responding to President Lee Jae-myung's reading of rising housing permits and groundbreakings in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area as a government achievement, Oh countered that the gains were the result of the city government's work to restore redevelopment projects.
In a Facebook post on the 6th titled "People's lives are too desperate for us to watch the president's self-delusion," Oh said: "If home prices rise, it's the fault of speculators; if someone points out the side effects of a policy, it's resistance from vested interests; if the public complains of pain, it's backlash to be endured in the course of reform. With the president's narrow view, there appears to be no hope going forward."
He took particular aim at Lee's explanation, posted on his personal social media account the previous day, that the year-on-year increase in permits and groundbreakings in Seoul and the metropolitan area reflected the government's push for speed. "It takes more than 10 years on average from forming an association to breaking ground," Oh said. "Does the president have some magic lamp that can produce permits and groundbreakings in just one year?"
He went on to stress that the recent supply figures were the result of the Seoul city government rebuilding the foundation for redevelopment projects and improving their financial viability. "During former Mayor Park Won-soon's tenure, redevelopment and reconstruction projects covering 389 sites and 430,000 homes were canceled," Oh said. "Since then, the Seoul city government has newly designated 214 sites and created the conditions to move permits and groundbreakings forward."
Oh put groundbreakings on redevelopment and reconstruction projects at about 15,000 homes last year. He said the city is targeting 30,000 this year and plans to break ground on a total of 85,000 homes across 85 districts by 2028. "This is not an achievement built overnight," he said. "We are rebuilding a collapsed supply base piece by piece and steadily producing results."
He also criticized the president's suggestion that conservative governments encouraged speculation while progressive governments curbed it, calling it "groundless binary thinking." Oh said the administration "has not moved a single step away from viewing real estate through ideology rather than market principles." Of Lee's call for the public to "be patient and wait just a little longer," Oh responded: "That is not something to say to people whose hearts are burning because they cannot even find a home to move into amid chaos in the rental market."
Oh then urged the president to "honestly admit the housing policy failures of the past year, correct the wrong direction and courageously declare that you will start over from square one." He added: "Changing your thinking and changing your policy in the face of the public's suffering is the true courage that the nation's top leader can show."
