Incheon City announced on the 23rd that it has filed a civil lawsuit against the Ministry of National Defense to confirm the method of calculating the sale price related to the purchase of the former Bupyeong US military base (Camp Market) site.
In 2013, the city signed an "Agreement for the Management and Disposal of National Property" with the Ministry of National Defense and paid the entire purchase price of 491.5 billion KRW for the Camp Market site by 2022. According to the agreement, the sale price is to be "finalized and settled after appraisal following the release (return) of the grant."
However, there has been a disagreement over the method of price settlement: Incheon City insists that the price should be determined based on an appraisal as of the land return date (December 2019), while the Ministry of National Defense argues that the price should be finalized based on the appraisal at the time of signing the sales contract after land remediation is completed. The Ministry maintains that, according to the procedures for disposing of general property under the National Property Act, the price must be finalized at the time of the sales contract.
If the appraisal is conducted based on the official land price in 2024-2025 as the Ministry claims, the site price will increase compared to the past, resulting in additional financial burden for Incheon City.
Incheon City has worked to amend the related law, the "US Military Grant Area Act," to clarify the disposal standards for returned grant areas; however, the amendment bill proposed in August last year is expected to be discarded along with the 21st National Assembly. The amendment stipulated that the sale price of the returned grant area should be calculated based on the return date.
An Incheon City official stated, "The Camp Market lawsuit is to confirm the unclear method of calculating the site sale price," adding, "The city will accelerate the projects utilizing the Camp Market site, which is a long-standing wish of Incheon citizens, and do its best to secure national funding."
Meanwhile, apart from this lawsuit, the city plans to proceed with various construction projects on schedule, aiming to open Janggogae Road early next year and to develop Camp Market into a park by 2030.
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