[Inside Chodong]The 'Real Estate Development' Ghost Revived Every Election Season

Just five days after the government announced the lifting of greenbelt (development restriction zones) regulations in non-metropolitan areas and the easing of absolute farmland development restrictions, it has now unveiled plans to massively lift military facility protection zones nationwide, including areas around military airbases and border regions. This comes just over 40 days before the April 10 general election.

The easing of greenbelt regulations marks the first time in nine years since the Park Geun-hye administration in 2015, and the first nationwide overhaul in about 20 years since the full lifting of greenbelts in seven small and medium-sized cities including Chuncheon between 2001 and 2003, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The six target regions?Busan, Ulsan, Changwon, Daejeon, Daegu, and Gwangju?cover a vast area of 2,429 km², roughly 837 times the size of Yeouido. Unlike previous administrations that targeted the greenbelt to address severe housing shortages in the metropolitan area, this time the focus is on strengthening the industrial base in non-metropolitan large cities. The government is prepared to lift even the highly preserved first and second-grade greenbelts if necessary for national advanced industrial complexes or local governments’ regional strategic projects. Since many attempts to establish advanced industrial complexes in local areas were previously thwarted by greenbelt restrictions, appropriate deregulation is expected to help revive regional economies facing extinction. However, many areas previously released from greenbelt restrictions have yet to begin development, and even where development has occurred, many have remained ghost industrial complexes without corporate tenants.

The lifting of military facility protection zones is also on the largest scale ever. A total of 339 km², equivalent to 117 times the size of Yeouido, including areas around the Air Force base in Seosan, Chungnam, border areas in Cheorwon, Gangwon, and the Godeok International New City in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, will be released. Since the 1970s when military facility protection zones were first introduced, both the economy and security situation have changed significantly, so some adjustments are necessary. The government expects that residents will find it easier to exercise property rights and that regional development will gain momentum. The government has also promised to firmly support Chungnam to become an advanced industrial hub comparable to Silicon Valley in the United States.

The problem lies in the timing of the announcement and the feasibility of implementation. The government emphasized the “largest-ever” scale of greenbelt lifting at the time of the announcement. At the end of last year, it lifted military facility protection zones covering about 53.74 million square meters, 19 times the size of Yeouido, and now, less than two months later, it has announced another large-scale lifting. There are doubts about whether the original purpose of the greenbelt?to prevent uncontrolled urban expansion and protect green environments?has been thoroughly considered, whether the impact on military operations has been properly assessed, and whether the potential side effects such as indiscriminate development and real estate speculation have been taken into account.

In the past, attractive real estate policies have often been announced during election seasons. However, citizens, having learned from previous populist measures aimed at easing regulations to promote development, no longer trust the government. Plans such as the mega-city formation through the incorporation of Gimpo into Seoul, and the promotion of underground railroads, metropolitan express railroads (GTX), and urban railroads, are also traces of ‘populist ghosts’ that appear before elections. No one can guarantee how much progress will be made during the current administration’s term or how the astronomical costs will be financed.

The domestic real estate market is already extremely precarious. Amid warning signs such as transaction stagnation and falling prices, the fallout from real estate project financing (PF) insolvency is significant. Unrealized pledges and “if it doesn’t work, so be it” policies only deepen distrust in the government and cause market confusion and distortion. Under no circumstances should politics threaten people’s livelihoods.