Official Invitation in Recognition of Achievements Including the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize
Sharing Housing Policies with the World: Moa Town and Fast-Track Integrated Planning
Seoul Mayor Oh Sehoon is taking a commemorative photo with Dean Slazanya Taseva after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) in Vienna, Austria, on the 1st (local time). Seoul City Photo by Seoul City
Seoul Mayor Oh Sehoon, who visited Vienna, Austria, showcased Seoul’s innovative public rental housing policies?including the long-term Jeonse housing model SHIFT and the Mirinae Jip program?to a global audience.
According to the city on the 4th, Mayor Oh participated in the "2025 World Cities Summit Mayors Forum" held the previous day (local time). As the first speaker in the "Housing Supply Policy" session, he presented Seoul’s public rental housing policies under the theme "Rental Housing Innovations to Improve Quality of Life in Seoul" in front of mayors from over 60 cities.
The city was officially invited to this event in recognition of its receipt of the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize?often called the Nobel Prize of urban administration?in 2018, and for successfully hosting the Mayors Forum in 2023. The World Cities Summit Mayors Forum is an international conference held every two years, organized by the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Centre for Liveable Cities (CLC).
In his presentation, Mayor Oh shared that, despite constraints such as high population density and limited land, Seoul has continuously expanded its public rental housing to alleviate housing costs. As a result, the proportion of public rental housing increased from 5.3% in 2010 to 11.2% in 2024.
He also introduced SHIFT, Korea’s first long-term Jeonse housing model for the middle class, and the Mirinae Jip policy, which extends the period of residence as families have more children, as representative examples of strategies to expand public rental housing. He presented these as sustainable housing policy directions for creating a livable city and addressing low birth rates.
He also shared housing strategies aimed at revitalizing the private housing sector. The city has introduced Moa Town and the Fast-Track Integrated Planning system, which involve public sector participation from the early stages of development. These initiatives aim to simplify procedures and pursue both public interest and business viability, thereby accelerating the pace of urban renewal.
Moa Town is a small-scale block-unit redevelopment method that combines old, low-rise residential areas of less than 100,000 square meters for complex-type development. When an area is designated as a Moa Town, residents benefit from relaxed regulations regarding building age, floor area ratio, and building height, which increases both project profitability and speed. The public sector provides funding to support the creation of essential infrastructure such as public parking lots and parks within the area.
The Fast-Track Integrated Planning system is a policy in which the public sector supports planning and administrative procedures from the early stages of private-led redevelopment and reconstruction projects. This shortens the period required for designating redevelopment zones and expedites various processes, including integrated reviews.
Mayor Oh also invited mayors to the "40th Anniversary General Assembly of Metropolis" and "Smart Life Week (SLW) 2025," both to be held in Seoul this September.
Meanwhile, the previous day, Mayor Oh met with Desmond Lee, Singapore’s Minister for National Development and chair of the Mayors Forum, to discuss cooperation on smart city and housing policies, as well as other key issues of mutual interest between the two countries.
At the subsequent welcome dinner, he met with Michael Ludwig, Mayor of Vienna, Peter Tschentscher, Mayor of Hamburg, and leaders from global cities such as Ankara, Turkey and Bilbao, Spain, pledging to strengthen cooperative relationships.
He also met with Matti Bunzl, Director of the Vienna Museum, to share Seoul Museum of Art’s operational strategies and the current status of the ongoing renovation of the Seosomun Main Building. The Vienna Museum, which reopened in 2023 after more than four years of renovation, is considered a success story, with its annual number of visitors increasing more than fivefold compared to before.
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