Lee Hyun-jae, mayor of Hanam in Gyeonggi Province, urged the central government to promptly normalize the stalled development of the Gyosan district in Hanam, one of the third-phase new towns.
At a press conference held at Hanam City Hall on the 9th, Mayor Lee demanded resolution of five key issues, saying, "Eight years have passed since the government announced the Gyosan district to address Seoul's housing shortage, but the project has stalled, heightening residents' anxiety."
The Hanam Gyosan public housing district is a project included in the second metropolitan housing supply plan announced in 2018. It will create 37,000 homes on 6,858,234 square meters across the Cheonhyeon-dong, Gyosan-dong and Chungung-dong areas, with completion scheduled for December 2028.
Mayor Lee pointed out, "Over the past two decades, consecutive new town developments including Wirye, Misa Riverside, Gamil and Gyosan have caused Hanam to suffer the pain of an 'endless construction site,' including traffic paralysis, environmental pollution and summer landslide concerns."
The five issues the city demanded be resolved that day were: finalizing a community-focused infrastructure plan; signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to attract businesses to self-sufficiency land; supporting the resettlement of original residents and raising the local priority allocation ratio; noise measures near the Dream Rest Area; and reorganizing the metropolitan transportation system.
Mayor Lee called for the swift implementation of the community-focused infrastructure plan, which was agreed upon with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) in March last year but was suspended during the final approval process.
He also urged the prompt signing of an MOU between Hanam and LH to attract businesses to 10 self-sufficiency land sites.
As measures for local residents, he proposed resettlement relocation measures for original residents and raising the local priority allocation ratio for Hanam residents from the current 30% to 50%.
"There is a precedent where the city invested 490.6 billion won of its own budget (700 billion won in present value) to resolve the lack of infrastructure in the early occupancy stages during the development of the existing Misa, Gamil and Wirye new towns," Mayor Lee stressed. "The principle of transportation and infrastructure first, occupancy later must be strictly observed."
For metropolitan transportation measures, he demanded full grade separation of the Hanam IC and West Hanam IC, timely opening of Subway Line 3, early opening of Line 9 in Misa, extension of the Wirye-Sinsa Line to Hanam, incorporation of a GTX-D route via Hwangsan, and priority commencement of construction on the Hanam section of the Seoul-Yangpyeong Expressway.
Mayor Lee stated, "The government must fulfill its original promises of a 'city with a 30-minute commute to central Seoul' and a 'city that creates jobs.'" He added, "The central government must actively step forward so that housing supply for low-income people without homes can be accelerated."
