Incheon 'Camp Market Park Development' Public Debate... Master Plan to be Completed in First Half of the Year

Incheon City announced on the 14th that it held a large public debate to create a park on the site of the former Bupyeong US military base (Camp Market).

The debate held the previous day focused on the direction for creating Camp Market Park and ways to ensure the park's sustainability. It proceeded with expert presentations, group discussions, and a Q&A session. A total of 237 citizens aged 18 and older, organized by gender and age, and 9 members of the future generation participation group composed of youths aged 14 to 17 participated in the debate.

The citizen participants had completed online preliminary learning, including expert lectures related to the topic, over the previous three weeks and also took part in three surveys.

The "Camp Market Citizen Deliberation Promotion Group" has been promoting citizen deliberation efforts for the creation of Camp Market Park since July last year. This month, after conducting a citizen awareness survey and the debate, they plan to prepare an analysis report summarizing the deliberation process so far, which will be reviewed by the Camp Market Citizen Participation Committee in May.

Incheon Old Bupyeong US Military Base (Camp Market) View [Photo provided by Incheon City]

Incheon City is currently establishing a master plan to create a park on the fully returned Camp Market site (totaling 473,000 square meters), which was completely returned last December with the return of Zone D. The city plans to complete the plan by the first half of this year by strengthening communication and gathering diverse opinions.

Camp Market originally opened in 1939 as the Japanese weapons factory "Jobyeongchang" and was used as a US military base after liberation in 1945. Some parts of the site (216,000 square meters), including military supply facilities and a baseball field, were returned first in 2019, and the return of the remaining areas such as the bakery and warehouses was completed last December.

Hwang Hyo-jin, Deputy Mayor for Global City Administration of Incheon, said, "Citizen deliberation is the first step and beginning to create the future Camp Market," adding, "We will continue to incorporate citizens' voices during the process of concretizing the park creation plan after establishing the master plan."