Yongin City Urgently Allocates 1.38 Billion KRW to Support Farm Snowstorm Damage Recovery

Cheoin-gu Faces Maximum Damage, Promises Swift Support for Building Permits
Mayor Lee Urges "Government and Political Circles to Prepare Rapid Support Measures"

Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province will provide a budget of 1.38 billion KRW to restore facilities of farms damaged by last month's heavy snowfall. The city also decided to simplify the building permit process for the rapid reconstruction of collapsed temporary structures caused by the snowfall.

On the 10th, Yongin City announced that it will urgently allocate 1.38 billion KRW, including the city’s contingency funds, to quickly restore farms in the agriculture, forestry, and livestock sectors damaged by the heavy snowfall on the 27th and 28th of last month.

The city will provide differentiated support totaling 1 billion KRW in city funds to six towns and townships, including 530 million KRW to Namsa-eup in Cheoin-gu, where the most severe damage occurred. Additionally, 380 million KRW in Gyeonggi Province funds, which are restricted to use in the livestock sector restoration, will be allocated for costs such as demolition of livestock barns and disposal of deceased livestock.

The city’s contingency funds will be used to mobilize equipment and manpower necessary for demolishing the collapsed agriculture, forestry, and livestock facilities. The city plans to support the demolition of collapsed structures next week after contracting restoration companies through each town and township.

As of 2 p.m. on the 9th, the damage reported in the agriculture, forestry, and livestock sectors in Yongin City, entered into the National Disaster Management System (NDMS), was calculated at 35.7 billion KRW, accounting for 64% of the total damage of 55.2 billion KRW. The remainder consists of damage to houses, factories, and commercial buildings. According to on-site investigations conducted by the city as of 5 p.m. on the 8th, the damage affected 1,859 farms and 3,393 facilities (totaling 227 hectares). The survey found that 2,973 greenhouses belonging to 1,694 vegetable and flower farms, 277 barns and fish farms of 165 livestock and aquaculture farms, and 143 forestry product facilities of 103 mushroom and landscaping tree farms were damaged.

Lee Sang-il, Mayor of Yongin City, said, "Individual farms are at a loss as to how to restore their facilities, so the city is mobilizing all available resources to help as much as possible." He added, "The emergency allocation of contingency funds was decided with the intention of providing even a little help to the affected farms."

Agricultural facilities in Cheoin-gu, Yongin City, collapsed due to heavy snowfall last month. Cheoin-gu has stepped up to support building permits to quickly restore the damaged structures. Provided by Yongin City

In Cheoin-gu, where the snowfall damage was the greatest, the district office decided to expedite the building permit administration to quickly restore damaged buildings. The district office established a permit support plan and formed a dedicated task force (TF) team on the 6th.

To reduce the time required for administrative procedures, the district office decided to shorten the permit processing period and omit the re-reporting process for temporary structures. Until now, buildings destroyed by natural disasters had to go through the process of obtaining reconstruction permits (reports) before re-reporting the construction of temporary structures.

The main support measures include ▲ minimizing interdepartmental consultations and prioritizing processing during reconstruction permit application ▲ repairing and restoring temporary structures without separate procedures within the reporting scope ▲ not imposing enforcement fines and extending the retention period for expired temporary structures ▲ allowing arbitrary reconstruction of non-reported vinyl greenhouses without separate reporting procedures ▲ and prioritizing the processing of destruction reports.

Meanwhile, Mayor Lee also urged the government and political circles to prepare swift support measures. He said, "I hope the government, National Assembly, and political parties do not ignore the heartbreaking situation at the snowfall damage sites and quickly prepare support measures so that the affected farmers can regain strength and courage."

Earlier, on the 5th, Mayor Lee requested the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to promptly designate the snowfall-affected areas as a 'Special Disaster Zone.' If designated as a special disaster zone, national and provincial subsidies can cover 50 to 80%, and residents in the affected areas will receive 12 types of indirect support, including reductions in health insurance premiums and discounts on electricity and communication fees.

Along with this, Mayor Lee proposed to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to promptly decide on the national budget support for rapid disaster relief payments and to expand the upper limit of demolition cost support from the current 10% to 30%.