'Icheon Crematorium' That Caused 4 Years of Local Conflict Finally Canceled

Kim Gyeonghee, Mayor of Icheon, "Judged Project Advancement Unreasonable Despite Major Reasons"

Gyeonggi-do Icheon City has scrapped its plan to build a municipal crematorium in the Sujeong-ri area of Bubal-eup.

On the 12th, Mayor Kim Kyung-hee held a briefing in the city hall's main conference room and stated, "After comprehensively reviewing the procedural issues pointed out in the Gyeonggi-do audit results, we judged that it would be unreasonable to proceed with the construction of the crematorium facility in Sujeong-ri," announcing this decision.

Kim Kyung-hee, Mayor of Icheon, announced the cancellation of the Icheon municipal crematorium during a press briefing on the 12th.
[Photo by Icheon City]

Mayor Kim added, "I also regret that the site selection process was pushed forward unilaterally without sufficient communication and understanding with the neighboring local government, Yeoju City, and the adjacent residents."

However, Mayor Kim said, "We will make every effort to quickly prepare alternative plans from scratch to minimize inconvenience to citizens," leaving open the possibility of searching for a new candidate site.

Previously, Icheon City had been promoting the construction of a municipal crematorium since 2019, and in August of the following year, Sujeong-ri in Bubal-eup was selected as the candidate site through a public contest.

However, since the candidate site is adjacent to Maehwa-ri in Sejong Daewang-myeon, Yeoju City, residents of the Yeoju area strongly opposed it, and internal conflicts also arose within the city.

Subsequently, 189 Icheon citizens requested an audit from Gyeonggi-do on the grounds of violating the Local Finance Act, and last month, the province announced audit results confirming illegal and improper matters such as improper budget carryover and internal review of investment projects, and improper procedures in conducting strategic environmental assessments.

Additionally, there was a claim that the announcement made under the name of the Chairman of the Crematorium Construction Promotion Committee, rather than the mayor, at the time of the candidate site contest was invalid. The city inquired about the legal validity of this matter to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety at the end of July, and the ministry recently responded that "an announcement under the name of the chairman of the advisory Promotion Committee has no legal effect," leading to the final decision to scrap the project.

Mayor Kim said, “We judged that insisting on building the crematorium in Sujeong-ri, Bubal-eup, amid such serious obstacles was unreasonable,” and added, “We will restart the project from scratch with more thorough procedures, seek residents’ understanding, and ensure there are no administrative defects.”