A call has emerged within the ruling Democratic Party to sharply expand the staffing and budget of the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH). The push reflects concern that with the Lee Jae-myung administration pursuing a reorganization of LH, the state developer's execution capacity should be strengthened first to meet the more urgent goal of expanding public housing supply.
Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Nam-keun pressed the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) on the need to expand LH's role and capacity during a comprehensive policy hearing at the National Assembly's Special Committee on Budget and Accounts on the 25th.
Kim noted that the government has rolled out a series of housing supply measures — the Sept. 7, Jan. 19 and Aug. 13 packages — assigning private-sector projects to the Seoul city government and public projects to LH. "You draw up the measures and then tell LH to do the work, and what one person used to handle as three tasks becomes ten," he said. "Even the work they were already doing can no longer get done."
Kim directly asked MOLIT about the direction of the Lee administration's LH overhaul. "Under the Lee Jae-myung government, is the plan for LH one of downsizing and breakup, or of actively strengthening its capacity so it can take the lead in housing supply and public-interest projects?" he asked. MOLIT replied that the aim was "to actively step in and resolve the issues."
Kim then cited LH's staffing shortage with specific examples. Pointing to public urban-center redevelopment and public-led redevelopment projects underway in Seoul, he argued that "LH's organization in Seoul is very small, and its capacity must be actively strengthened so that it can carry out these projects." He added, "When you talk with residents in public urban-center redevelopment areas, you find that in 2024 one person was in charge of six districts." He said, "They spend all their time running from place to place until it's gone." He stressed that "it's questionable whether the job can even be done with a team assigned to a single district," and that a structure should be built in which at least a team of three or four people can take on a project.
Kim's assessment is that if the government keeps adding public projects to LH while raising its supply targets, it will be hard to speed up supply without expanding the organization, staff and funding together. "We need to build a structure that lets LH do the work," he stressed again. He went on to argue that LH's financial burden from rising construction costs should be supported. "Construction costs need to be brought in line with reality," Kim said. "As construction costs rise, LH needs support."
