President Byun Chang-heum of Korea Land and Housing Corp.(LH) (Photos: LH)

Major South Korean builders are making inroads into overseas emerging markets to construct new residential developments on the back of pacts signed between the Land Ministry and its counterparts in South America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Among the destinations are cities and residential districts in Paraguay, Bolivia, Algeria, Ethiopia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Nepal, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and China.

The builders include Korea Land & Housing Corp. (LH), Hanwha Engineering & Construction, Daewoo Engineering & Construction, Hyundai Engineering & Construction, Lotte Group, GS Engineering & Construction and Daelim Industrial.

The residential towns to be built across the globe are “Korean-style smart towns” that integrate high-end apartments with smart technologies.

Since its incorporation by the Seoul Metropolitan Government in 1989, SH Corporation, Co., Ltd. has delivered secure housing solutions and improved Seoul citizens' quality of lives, delivering 160,000-odd new rental housing units and more than 89,000 homes for sale, as well as completing large-scale housing development projects such as Eunpyeong New Town, the Southeastern District Distribution Complex, and Magok Housing District Development projects that changed the geographical map of the capital city. At SH Corporation, all executives and employees will remain committed to serving Seoul citizens better and sincerely as a leader of housing welfare delivery and urban regeneration programs.

At SH Corporation, all executives and employees will remain committed to serving Seoul citizens better and sincerely as a leader of housing welfare delivery and urban regeneration projects. President Byeon Chang-heum said the “third-period new cities” should be designed differently from the existing cities to be more supplementary-type projects, while taking care of the problems from the first and second wave of new cities.

One of the reasons is that when the first- and second-wave cities were built and sold, housing prices started rising fast, which made it difficult to supply the new houses. But there is now enough time to plan and build the new-type cities this year. “We ought to come up with a new model for the 3rd period new cities, mixing construction and the city development plans.” the president said.

LH is currently engaged in the development of a basic plan for the next wave of new cities in cooperation with LH Land and Housing Research Institute and the LH New City Planning Team. He said the ideas came from the New City Forum, a new think tank, made up with the experts trained by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, that calls for the concentration of houses in low cost areas in new cities may be good enough.

The residential houses in Paris have an average floor area ratio less than 250 percent, but the actual concentration ratio is higher than for our high-rise apartments with the floor area ratio of 300 percent, showing that the low floor area ratios can be boosted to the higher actual floor area ratios with an effective measure.

Byeon also unveiled the thoughts on remuneration payments on land to be bought for the new cities. LH considered some 20 trillion won would be needed for reimbursements for the land to build the new cities, which will be boosted from 30 trillion won to as much as 40 trillion won if the costs for the construction of basic foundation and the preparation for land to build houses are considered.

For fear that the excessive costs for land remuneration could spur inflation and the rush for land investments around the country, a number of new ideas have been in development including the participation of the private sector by further boosting the land remuneration payments and the creation of REITs to take charge of the planning for the new cities.

He also suggested the idea of a “Compact City” to solve the problems associated with the spurts in the housing prices in Seoul, mostly in the Gangnam Area, by developing the land around the railroad stations for residential houses.

A scene from a meeting on the reports on the research on strengthening the self-satisfactory function and job creation from the 3rd New Cities Plan held on June 17 at LH Gyeonggi Province Regional Office.