[Interview] Park Hee-young, Yongsan District Mayor: "Focus on the Opening of the Yongsan Era... Creating a Premium City"

Yongsan District Mayor Park Hee-young Pledges Breakthrough Changes Tangible to Residents Through Four-Way Policy Cooperation Among Central Government, National Assembly, Seoul City, and Yongsan District Including Yongsan International Business District Development, Yongsan Park Creation, and Railway Underground Projects

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] “The relocation of the presidential office to Yongsan is an opportunity from our district’s perspective. Yongsan is gaining attention. New changes will begin, including urban development. Please look forward to it.”

Park Hee-young, Mayor of Yongsan District, said in an interview ahead of his 100th day in office, “With the presidential office relocation, Yongsan has become the center of political administration. Various development clocks have started ticking rapidly.”

A representative change being pushed forward with speed can be seen at Yongsan Park. On the 4th, the Ministry of National Defense announced that the United Nations Command headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul, has begun relocating to Pyeongtaek Humphreys Base and will complete the move by the end of this month. This accelerates the foundation for the creation of Yongsan Park. Yongsan Park will be reborn as a vast ecological axis connecting Namsan to the Han River, an open national park where nature, culture, history, and the future harmonize.

The Yongsan International Business District project will also resume. This is a blueprint for Seoul to strengthen its competitiveness as an international city centered on Yongsan. The international business district, where cutting-edge technologies will be implemented not only in transportation, disaster prevention systems, and environmental energy but also in lifestyle and cultural aspects, is expected to have ICT infrastructure established from the development stage. Yongsan District has established a 2022-2026 Smart City Plan and will complete the expansion of communication network capacity by the end of this year, investing a total of 1.2 billion KRW to meet the increasing demand for network services.

Mayor Park expressed his determination, saying, “We will ensure that Yongsan District’s opinions are reflected in the Yongsan International Business District project.”

Since his election, Mayor Park has been making efforts to develop the region by taking the presidential office relocation to Yongsan as an opportunity to solve local issues and establishing a cooperative system with the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

In particular, from the beginning of his term, Mayor Park announced that he would create groundbreaking changes that residents can feel through a four-way policy cooperation among the central government, National Assembly, Seoul Metropolitan Government, and Yongsan District.

Mayor Park said, “We have reorganized the district organization to establish a system that cooperates in promoting national projects such as the international business district development, Yongsan Park creation, and railway undergrounding.”

The “8th Term Civil Administration Organization Restructuring Plan” was established in September. The core of this restructuring is the establishment of the Planning and Coordination Office, which will serve as the district’s control tower. Following the presidential office relocation, a “External Strategy Team” will be created to promote cooperation with external organizations, an “Urban Cleanliness Team” for street environment cleanliness, and a “Strategic Urban Development Team” dedicated to external cooperation for urban development. Additionally, the “Policy Communication Team” will discover residents’ long-standing projects and implement life-centered administration, the “Culture and Arts Team” will create regional growth engines through discovering cultural tourism content, and the “Sports Facilities Team” will aggressively expand sports facility infrastructure for residents, which had been insufficient due to development delays.

An additional supplementary budget of 59.7 billion KRW will be finalized this month. Major pledge projects of the 8th term, including support for revitalizing traditional markets and alleyway businesses, promotion of basic plans for cultural foundation and tourism activation, and organizational diagnosis for management efficiency of the Facility Management Corporation, Yongsan Craft Center, Welfare Foundation, and Comprehensive Social Welfare Center, will be undertaken.

Furthermore, budgets will be allocated to projects directly related to residents’ lives and safety, such as flood prevention for underground housing in low-lying areas, seismic performance reinforcement of Ichon Overpass, and repair of aging rectangular sewer and drainage structures.

Mayor Park emphasized, “With the additional budget allocation, the major projects of the 8th term have been put on track. I will work together with residents on-site to make Yongsan a world-class premium city.”

Mayor Park identified “drastic improvement of the residential environment” as a key issue for the 8th term. He diagnosed that the urban regeneration development method promoted by the city so far is far from Yongsan’s reality. Due to height restrictions established in the 1980s and 1990s, residents of Yongsan 2-ga-dong and Huam-dong have lost the will to develop and live in environments with poor infrastructure. The district plans to raise issues such as aging buildings and regional slumification caused by height district regulations and will continue consultations with the Seoul Metropolitan Government to ease height restrictions in height districts.

Mayor Park Hee-young promised, “Most areas of Yongsan correspond to redevelopment and reconstruction sites. If residents’ opinions on development methods and content are gathered, we will guarantee administrative procedures and conveniences to ensure the project gains momentum.”