The Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) launched New Year 2026 business briefing sessions targeting 29 offices and bureaus on Jan. 20.
In a first business briefing session on Jan. 20, the Housing Office, the Urban Space Headquarters, the Director General’s Office for Future Space Planning and the Balanced Development Headquarters explained about issues, such as housing supply and policy goals on the balanced development of the Gangbuk (north of the Han River) area.
SMG plans to execute policies to the extent Seoulites experience changes during their daily life through resolving of housing issues and balanced development strategies designed to restructure Seoul’s growth structure.
First, the Housing Office stressed policies to raise the speed of housing supply via the “Swift Integrated Planning 2.0.”
SMG plans to expand the number of apartment units whose construction will start in three years from the previous 79,000 to 85,000, an increase of 6,000 units with the goal of raising the figure to 310,000 by 2031.
To this end, SMG plans to concentrate its support, such as relocation and removal to 24 renovation target districts where ground-breaking is possible within three years and advance ground-breaking by one year.
As apartment units are sold within three to six months after ground-breaking, the speed of housing supply citizens sense is likely to is faster.
SMG has come up with steps to ease financial burden for newly-wed couples. Newly-wed couples for the “Advance My Home,” a long-term jeonse housing, will be allowed to pay their rent deposit money in an installment payment system.
Occupants will be allowed to pay 70 percent of the deposit money in advance before they move in and defer the remaining 30 percent. They are to shoulder a tentative 2.5 percent interest rate, lower than market prices, during their occupation.
The Advance My Home Project has turned out to have an effect of coping with a low-birth rate.
SMG said 46 Advance My Home households who moved in December 2024 had 48 kids, and 82 percent of the respondents expressed future childbirth plans.
The Balanced Development Headquarters plans to implement strategies to change Seoul’s growth structure beyond simple regional development.
SMG plans to build a completed balanced model encompassing job, housing and culture through the three growth axes — “Seoul Arena,” “Seoul Digital Bio City,” and “Kwangwoon University Station Area Development Project.”
SMG also plans to implement “New Growth Edge-City Project” designed to develop untapped areas on the outskirts of the capital, such as Sinnae Train Depot into major centers of the Seoul metropolitan area.
The Urban Space Headquarters revealed a plan to attract people and revive the economy and the city through deregulation and expanding of green areas.
Among the representative development projects are “Yongsan ETLand Special Planning District Development” and a project designed to reinvigorate the Hongjae Subway Station area encompassing the integrated development of Yujin and Inwang markets.
SMG plans to secure additional green areas connecting Sewun green axis, Dongdaemun Design Plaza and Cheongyecheon areas.
The Director General’s Office for Future Space Planning approximately 10 trillion won being raised in public contributions through prior consultations for private-sector development will be put into infrastructure of the Gangbuk are and growth infrastructure projects.
Balanced regional development and growth share development will be pursued through cooperative models, such as regional REITS pilot projects designed to share development profit with citizens.
An ecological park, part of the “Global Art Islet,” now under construction as a global landmark is to be opened earlier than planned. The “Oil Tank Culture Park” will accommodate large-sized K-pop festivals.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said, “Now is a time when policies have begun to bear fruit at several parts of the capital city beyond the suggesting of their direction, and we will make Seoul a place in which citizens experience the difference and impression at their daily life by combining housing, space and balanced development policies into unified urban strategies.”
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