Five Military Units in Daegu City to Relocate to Gunwi by 2030... 2nd Operations Command, 50th Division, 5th Logistics Command, etc.

Daegu City Expects "Development of Vacated Sites"
Relocation Delayed Due to "Emergency Martial Law" Impact

Daegu City announced on the 5th that it has decided to relocate the integrated Daegu military units to Gunwi-gun, Daegu.

Daegu City plans to move the military units from the urban area to the outskirts to develop the vacated sites into new growth economic hubs. At the same time, the relocation project envisions creating advanced military barracks environments for the relocating units and promoting population growth and economic revitalization in the relocation area, aiming for a civilian-military win-win outcome.

Daegu City Hall Dongin Office Building

As local governments competed to attract the military units, Daegu City received proposals from five local governments?Yeongcheon City, Sangju City, Gunwi-gun, Uiseong-gun, and Chilgok-gun?in October 2022, and in December of the same year, requested preliminary consultations with the Ministry of National Defense regarding the relocation of the military units.

Subsequently, in December 2023, Daegu City and the Ministry of National Defense signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) containing plans for civilian-military cooperative development, making the project to relocate five military units stationed in Daegu by 2030 more tangible.

The units to be relocated include the Army's 2nd Operations Command, 50th Division Headquarters, 5th Logistics Support Command, and the Air Force's 1st Missile Defense Brigade and Air Defense Artillery School?five units of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces.

After Chilgok-gun withdrew its intention to host the military units in January, three of the remaining cities and counties?Gunwi-gun, Sangju City, and Yeongcheon City?were selected as preliminary candidate sites. An evaluation to select the final relocation site among these candidates was commissioned to the Daegu Policy Research Institute.

The Daegu Policy Research Institute, an external professional organization, reviewed factors such as project costs, ease of project procedures, and resident acceptance in the relocation areas, ultimately selecting Gunwi-gun as the final relocation site.

The military unit relocation project will proceed under a donation-based transfer method, where the project operator donates the facilities to the military in exchange for the transfer of the garrison site for development.

With the relocation site decided, Daegu City plans to first sign a memorandum of agreement with the Ministry of National Defense regarding the donation-based transfer project in the first half of next year and will begin preparations accordingly.

A comprehensive plan will be established covering the construction of military facilities at the relocation site, the creation of a civilian-military cooperative town, development of the transferred land, and commercialization plans for the donation-based transfer project. Based on this, a draft memorandum of agreement will be prepared in consultation with the Ministry of National Defense, followed by review by the Ministry of National Defense and deliberation by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, leading to the signing of the memorandum.

Once the memorandum is signed, based on it, the project executor will be selected, and after design and construction, the military unit relocation will be completed by the end of 2030, after which full-scale development of the vacated sites will commence.

However, due to the absence of the Minister of National Defense following the emergency martial law situation, the selection of preliminary candidate sites, originally scheduled to conclude by the end of last year, was delayed until this year. There are also forecasts that future consultations and agreements with the Ministry of National Defense, including the signing of the memorandum, may not proceed smoothly.

Hong Jun-pyo, Mayor of Daegu, said, “I sincerely thank the officials of each local government, citizens, and military residents who have shown passionate efforts and interest in attracting the military unit relocation site since October 2022,” adding, “With the final decision on the relocation site, we expect the military unit relocation project, which lays the foundation for Daegu’s development over the next 100 years and strengthens national security through civilian-military cooperation, to proceed with greater momentum.”