MOLIT Minister Kim Hyun-mee announces the plan for the 3rd New Cities on May 7 at a meeting held at the ministry’s conference room in Seoul. B: A map of the series of new cities from the 1st to 3rd plans already built and to be built around Seoul and in Gyeonggi Province. (Photos: MOLIT)

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has been going all out to build and supply 300,000 residents in the Capital area including the 3rd New Cities with jobs for everyone and a full transportation connections as urged by MOLIT Minister Kim Hyun-mee.

Officials of the MOLIT said on June 30 that the ministry has decided to set up two new sections under the Public Housing Promotion Team which reports to the Public Housing Headquarters.

They are the Public Housing Land Planning Section and the Public Housing Land Management Section, which will soon be set up and ready to go do work with their name plates hung up as soon as the talks with the Personnel Reform Office of the MOLIT is concluded.

The Public Housing Land Planning Section is in charge of the 3rd New Cities Project which should have a superb transportation links with easy accesses to the nearby towns including the 1st and 2nd New Cities so those cities can live together coping together well in times of natural disasters like heavy rains and snow.

The Public Housing Land Planning Section is in charge of the 3rd New Cities and the construction of 300,000 new residential houses in the Capital Area, which was announced over three different occasions from May to September, last year due to the fear that it might rattle the real estate market.

Under the land procurement plan are the land for residential houses to be built in 5 other cities around Seoul including Namyangju, Koyang, Hanam, Kyeyang, and Incheon. So far such matters as the announcements on the new cities and other matters were made by the Land Planning Team, an unofficial set up under the Public Housing Promotion Team much like a task force getting promoted to be a full section.

The public housing Land Management section, the other new section slated to be set up, will take charge of the planning for the 300,000 houses under plan for construction in the Seoul area promoted by the MOLIT. Each new section would have around 10 to 13 officers and staff when they officially launch their operations.

Minister Kim often swore that the 3rd new cities will be built mindful of high expectations for their construction with the government fully behind the moves.

What the minister means is that the new cities will be built in such way as to have all kinds of advantages to attract the residents in line with a government policy to disperse the heavy concentration of population in Seoul to other less populated areas.

The ministry, in the same vein, launched the new City Forum, an advisory unit to draw up a blue print for the3rd New Cities, like a think tank, made up 52 experts in such diverse areas as city planning, construction, transportation, jobs, environment, smart city, education and culture, six key areas in all.