BUSAN — The Busan Metropolitan Government has formally confirmed that it will press ahead with a regional municipal waste incineration plant at its planned site in Saenggok-dong, Gangseo District. The city said scrapping the project under pressure from political calls for a full review and complaints from residents of the nearby Eco Delta City development would trigger massive sunk costs, a waste disposal crisis and a collapse in public trust in the administration. Gangseo District politicians and Eco Delta City residents are pushing back strongly, calling the move a "unilateral decision."
The city laid out its official position at a background briefing for reporters at city hall on the 7th. The project, with a total cost of 315.8 billion won, would build a regional treatment facility on about 60,000 square meters in Saenggok-dong capable of incinerating 500 tons of household waste a day to generate energy.
According to the city, the project has proceeded through proper and lawful procedures since 2017, on the premise that residents of Saenggok village — located within the area affected by the existing landfill — would be relocated. As of August this year, 133 of the 162 households, or 82%, had already moved out. Of the 140.4 billion won earmarked for relocation, 91 billion won has already been spent.
But after the basic plan for the waste treatment facility construction was publicly notified last September, complaints from Eco Delta City residents mounted and politicians raised the idea of examining alternative sites, leading to a suspension of the consulting work on the project's basic plan. The city made clear its opposition to that idea, saying a move to an alternative site would require at least 15 years for administrative procedures, compensation and construction, pushing completion of the facility to 2042.
The city also rejected alternative sites floated by some parties, including land set aside for support facilities at Gadeokdo airport and the villages of Janghang and Yulli, as unrealistic. The airport support site sits just 250 meters from the runway of Gadeokdo New Airport, raising serious concerns about collisions and other safety incidents during takeoff and landing, and given the airport's completion date of 2035, an incinerator there could not be finished until 2042, the city said. For Janghang and Yulli, the city projected that securing the land and paying compensation alone would take more than seven years because of the nearby port and resident opposition, extending the overall project timeline by more than 15 years.
The city also warned of the fiscal and social fallout if the project collapses. If the administrative purpose of the acquired land disappears, more than 91 billion won already spent would be written off as sunk costs, and relocated residents could exercise repurchase rights on their land from April 2030, allowing former residents to move back in. If the public incinerator is not built on time, the cost for district and county governments to outsource household waste treatment would rise more than tenfold, while disposal costs for traditional markets and businesses would more than double, translating directly into a financial burden on residents and small business owners.
The city also dismissed as legally groundless the claim raised by politicians that the previous mayor's administration had agreed to scrap the plan. Under the current law on promoting waste treatment facilities, abandoning the site and selecting a new one would require restarting legal procedures from the beginning, including reconstituting the site selection committee, obtaining resident consent and holding public hearings, and no official directive or document from the top policymaker exists, the city said. On the dispute over an alleged "failure to disclose" the incinerator when Eco Delta City units were put on sale, the city said the public notice on the incinerator site selection, in September 2019, came more than two years before the first notice recruiting Eco Delta City occupants, in October 2021.
To address environmental concerns among residents of the new town, the city promised to apply environmental standards far stricter than legal requirements, install the latest emissions control equipment and disclose real-time data through a telemetry monitoring system (TMS), and build top-tier amenities for residents such as a swimming pool and an indoor gymnasium. Alongside that, the city plans to devote its full efforts to persuading and communicating with residents while pursuing improvements to transport infrastructure in the new town, including a Gangseo Line tram and an Eco Delta City interchange.
"This is not about forcing the project through unconditionally. We will do our best to keep the project moving forward based on active win-win measures and through sufficient understanding and persuasion of residents," a city official said. "We will disclose the process more transparently and communicate with residents to dispel distrust, and we will listen carefully to legitimate requests."
Eco Delta City residents, who live about 2.5 kilometers from the planned site, along with the head of Gangseo District Office and local politicians, are strongly opposed. The controversy flared up again on the 2nd of this month, when Rep. Kim Do-eup conveyed his opposition to the project to the mayor at a budget and policy meeting between the Busan city government and the People Power Party's Busan chapter, held in Seoul. The next day, at a weekly policy meeting, the mayor signaled a determination to continue, saying administrative procedures had been halted by mass complaints and that "enormous sunk costs have already been incurred, and if this does not proceed as planned, there is no way out."
The roots of the conflict go back to October last year. At the time, Kim's side disclosed the contents of a meeting in which former Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon said the project would be difficult to pursue if local politicians and residents opposed it and that he would look for a third site. Afterward, when a senior city official told the city council that the possibility of scrapping the project was "under review," residents came to expect that it might be reconsidered or withdrawn. But the city's stance shifted after the new mayor took office following the June 3 local elections.
