The Seoul Metropolitan Government said on the 17th that it would consider appealing to the Supreme Court after an appellate court ruled that its rezoning of the site for a planned gondola on Namsan was unlawful, calling the decision "hard to accept." Separately from the litigation, the city is also pursuing a revision to the enforcement decree of the Park and Green Space Act that would allow construction of the gondola to resume.
The city issued a statement shortly after the Seoul High Court handed down its ruling in the appeal seeking to overturn the urban management plan decision for the Namsan gondola, saying the court "did not sufficiently reflect the procedural legitimacy and statutory requirements that the city observed in the course of deciding the urban management plan."
The Seoul High Court upheld the lower court's ruling against the city in the suit filed by Korea Cable Car, the operator of the Namsan cable car, seeking to cancel the urban management plan decision. Korea Cable Car sued in 2024 after the city changed the designation of the site from an urban natural park area to a neighborhood park, an urban planning facility, in order to erect an intermediate support tower needed for the gondola.
Under current park and green space regulations, structures taller than 12 meters cannot be built in an urban natural park area, and the gondola's support towers far exceed that limit. The court of first instance ruled that the city's change of the zoning designation failed to meet statutory requirements and was therefore unlawful.
The city maintains that the change was a lawful administrative step given the particular characteristics of Namsan. "Namsan is an area where an urban natural park area and an urban planning facility (park) are intermingled, and it requires integrated and systematic management as a single park," the city said. "Changing the urban management plan to that end is an essential administrative measure for the active development and management of an urban park."
The city added that the interpretation under which "a site can be designated again as a facility park only once it has lost its green space and leisure functions" amounts to the contradictory position that "a park can be designated as a park only after it has lost its function as a park."
The city said it would consider a Supreme Court appeal in particular because the ruling makes further delays to the gondola project unavoidable. "It is extremely regrettable that the city's administrative discretion in the public interest, exercised to relieve the difficulties faced by 12 million visitors a year and by people with limited mobility, was not recognized," it said. "If the gondola project runs aground, the damage will fall entirely on citizens, so we will closely review a Supreme Court appeal and proceed with it."
Apart from the appellate loss, the city is also pushing to resume construction through a revision of the enforcement decree of the Park and Green Space Act. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport gave public notice in June last year of a proposed revision easing height limits on cableway and disaster-prevention facilities within urban natural park areas, but the follow-up procedures have yet to be completed. The city plans to speed up the revision process, saying that once the decree is amended, it would provide a legal basis for advancing the gondola project without the zoning change at issue in the suit.
Kang Seok, head of the city's Balanced Development Headquarters, said the ruling "is a decision that did not sufficiently reflect the policy judgments the city has pursued to guarantee citizens' mobility rights and serve the public interest." He added, "If the project is halted, we will lose not only economic value but also the opportunity to grow into a global city, so we will review a Supreme Court appeal and do our utmost to the end to protect citizens' mobility rights and return Namsan to the citizens as it should be."
