Yangcheon-gu Leads Efforts to 'Tackle Airport Noise' with 14 Local Governments

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and 14 Local Governments Around Noise Control Airports Attend... Discussions Continue for Noise Measures Tailored to Local Residents' Perspectives

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Yangcheon-gu (District Mayor Kim Soo-young) held the "2nd National Airport Noise Countermeasure Local Government Working Council" meeting on the 18th at the 4th floor Gonggam Planning Office of Yangcheon-gu Office.

Yangcheon-gu is one of the local governments adjacent to Gimpo Airport with a very wide area affected by airport noise, and has continuously made efforts such as blocking Korea Airports Corporation's attempt to expand international flights at Gimpo Airport.

However, since there are limits to countermeasures by the autonomous district alone, the working council was held to gather voices from noise-affected areas nationwide and share various alternatives.

Attendees included working-level managers from local governments around airports in nationwide noise countermeasure areas (Seoul’s Yangcheon-gu, Guro-gu; Gyeonggi-do’s Bucheon-si, Gimpo-si, Gwangmyeong-si; Incheon’s Gyeyang-gu, Jung-gu, Ongjin-gun; Busan’s Gangseo-gu; Gyeongsangnam-do’s Gimhae-si; Jeju-do; Ulsan’s Jung-gu, Buk-gu; Jeollanam-do’s Yeosu-si) and officials from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The agenda included ▲discussion on institutional improvement plans related to the Ministry’s ‘3rd Mid-term Airport Noise Prevention Plan’ ▲report on the progress of improving the resident support project operation system ▲consultation on the plan to conduct noise impact surveys for designation and notification of Gimpo Airport noise countermeasure areas. The meeting continued with sharing of each local government’s current noise countermeasure projects, best practices in resident support projects, and Q&A sessions.

At the 1st working council held in June last year, agreements were made on joint proposals such as preferential hiring for residents in noise countermeasure areas, requests for cooperation from local district lawmakers, joint responses among neighboring local governments to the expansion of international flights at Gimpo Airport, and recommendations to related agencies on improving the excess noise charge system, including strengthening international landing fee standards based on airport noise levels to expand the introduction of low-noise aircraft.

A Yangcheon-gu official stated, “Our district will make greater efforts to ensure substantive operation and regularization of the working council meetings, and based on the agreements derived from this working council, we will do our best to establish practical aircraft noise countermeasures.”