The human voice is the most beautiful instrument ever created, and a vocalist plays music on it. Yoon Sun-hee, a member of the Seoul Metropolitan Council representing Jongno District 1 for the Democratic Party of Korea, was nurturing dreams of becoming a prima donna in college when a chance opportunity as a National Assembly aide brought her into politics for the first time.
In the June 3 local elections, Yoon won a seat in the Seoul Metropolitan Council from Jongno, long regarded as South Korea's political heartland. After 14 years in national and local politics, she has begun to envision a new kind of politics alongside the residents of Jongno.
"I will seek effective measures to rationalize regulations that raise residents' quality of life while preserving history and culture," Yoon said in a meeting with The Seoul Economic Daily on the 28th. "I will do my utmost to make Jongno a district that is pleasant to live in and full of vitality."
"A central vision is delivered on the ground in local communities, and the answers to policy always lie in residents' daily lives," Yoon said, describing the political lesson her experience has etched into her. Having served three National Assembly members and learned the fundamentals of local councils, she made a practice of rushing to the site whenever a complaint arose, seeing it with her own eyes and drawing a roadmap for how to proceed.
Building on that experience, she has laid out the policy tasks she most wants to pursue in the 12th council.
Yoon named "harmonizing heritage protection with better living conditions" as her top priority. "Gyeongbokgung, Bukchon and Samcheong-dong are places that hold our country's history and pride, but for many years, height limits and rules on areas around cultural properties have caused residents great inconvenience in exercising their property rights and improving their everyday living conditions," she said.
Her plan is to work with the Seoul Metropolitan Government on reasonable easing of rules and on residential improvement in the city center — in other words, effective measures to rationalize regulations that raise residents' quality of life while preserving historical and cultural value.
She also plans to push what she calls a tourism policy that shields the living environment. "Because Jongno is a tourist destination that draws large numbers of visitors, there are challenges where residential areas and tourist areas collide — concerns about gentrification driven by excessive commercialization, invasions of residents' privacy, garbage and parking problems," Yoon said.
To address this, she intends to craft a tourism policy that protects the living environment and allows visitors and residents to thrive together, and to establish tailored support so that neighborhood commercial districts can breathe alongside traditional arts and cultural infrastructure.
Asked about the most urgent issue, she pointed to aging housing conditions. Jongno is a district that has preserved historical and cultural heritage along with its natural scenery, and at the same time one where many aging low-rise residential areas remain. "We must firmly protect the values that deserve preservation, but we also have to protect the living conditions and property rights of residents who have put up with all kinds of regulations for a long time," Yoon stressed.
To that end, she plans to actively pursue additional designation of small-scale housing improvement management zones and to expand redevelopment methods suited to local conditions, such as street-block housing improvement projects. She pledged to keep consulting with the Seoul Metropolitan Government to fix overlapping or excessive rules that do not fit local realities.
She also plans to work to raise the financial viability of projects so that areas where large-scale redevelopment is difficult are not left out of improvement efforts, allowing protection of residents' property rights and an expansion of housing supply to proceed together.
"To connect Jongno's cultural and tourism resources to local economic vitality, we need to evolve toward an economy based on longer stays and shared gains," Yoon said.
With Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Bukchon, Seochon and Samcheong-dong, Jongno holds the densest concentration of historical and cultural resources representing South Korea. Her plan is to shift from tourism in which visitors merely look and pass through to tourism built on longer stays and shared gains that fills the wallets of residents and merchants.
To that end, she plans to expand a tourism belt built around longer stays and programs linked to neighborhood commercial districts. She intends to propose first that a "Jongno Local Culture and Arts Tour Pass" be designed and introduced together with the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
"The pass would provide an integrated ticket that lets holders use neighborhood hanok craft studios, independent bookstores, local galleries, local restaurants and cafes at discounted prices or as package benefits," Yoon said, adding that she expects it to "become a policy of shared gains that gives tourists special memories and brings vitality to small business owners and neighborhood commercial districts."
She plans to keep communicating with residents in various ways. Unlike National Assembly members, local council members have no aide system, so she says she will communicate directly through visits to the field, social media and phone calls.
Yoon believes the most important things in communication — publicizing what a council member does, receiving residents' complaints and delivering solutions or alternatives — are the speed and transparency of feedback. "What matters most is arriving at the outcome both sides want, but residents are far more satisfied when you share the progress with them, whether it works out or not," she said.
Yoon, who has promised a Jongno that is "good to play in and worth playing in, good to live in and worth living in," said: "I am deeply grateful to the residents of Jongno for trusting me and giving me the chance to work, even though this is a place where it is hard for a Democratic Party council member to win." She confidently pledged to "repay them with results."
Yoon graduated from Ewha Womans University with a degree in vocal music and completed the political leadership program at Seoul National University's Department of Political Science and International Relations. At the National Assembly, she served as a secretary to lawmakers Shin Nak-kyun, Lee Un-ju and Ko Yong-jin. She entered local politics as a member of the 9th Nowon District Council in Seoul, where she served as vice chair of the Health and Welfare Committee and as a member of the Administration and Finance Committee. In November last year, she took the post of chair of the women's committee at the Democratic Party of Korea's Jongno District chapter, moving her political stage to Jongno, and won a seat in the 12th Seoul Metropolitan Council in July.
