Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju, First Local Autonomous District to Broadcast Urban Planning Committee Meetings Live

Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, will be the first local autonomous district to fully open its Urban Planning Committee to the public.

Gwangsan-gu announced that it will live stream the 3rd Urban Planning Committee meeting of 2024 online, which will be held at 2 p.m. on the 11th in the conference room on the 2nd floor of the district office.

The Gwangsan-gu Urban Planning Committee is a body that deliberates or advises on urban planning, and has been operated under a principle of confidentiality until now. This was due to concerns that many agenda items handled by the committee are related to development and real estate, which could trigger speculation and conflicts of interest.

Since switching to open operation of the entire committee last September, Gwangsan-gu judged that there could be no exceptions to the basic principle of implementing transparent and fair administration that citizens can trust, and decided to open the Urban Planning Committee to the public.

In June, the “Ordinance on the Establishment and Operation of the Urban Planning Committee of Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City” was amended to provide a legal basis for meeting disclosure (Article 8).

Except in cases where disclosure is prohibited by other laws or where there is a concern of harming public interest, citizens can now watch the Urban Planning Committee meetings in real time and immediately learn about the meeting contents.

At the Urban Planning Committee meeting to be publicly disclosed for the first time on the 11th, agenda items such as reports on the results of previous agenda measures, the abolition of small parks, and the establishment of social welfare facilities will be deliberated.

The meeting will be live streamed online through Gwangsan-gu’s website “GwangsanLIVE.” Citizens who wish to watch the meeting can view it on their smartphones or PCs.

Gwangsan-gu is also actively improving the infrastructure for committee disclosure. The number of conference rooms capable of real-time broadcasting will be expanded from three to four, and portable equipment will be provided so that meetings held outside the government building can also be live streamed online.

Park Byung-gyu, Mayor of Gwangsan-gu, stated, “Opening the Urban Planning Committee is a fulfillment of our promise to implement a district administration where citizens are the owners,” and added, “We will continuously supplement and improve matters related to committee disclosure and constantly innovate our working methods to further strengthen the transparency and fairness of administration.”