Korean Government Considering Allowing Development in Seoul’s Green Spaces
This plan would be disastrous to the various parks and green space around Seoul if approved:
South Korea is considering opening up greenbelt zones in the Seoul metropolitan area to make more land available for housing as part of efforts to help resolve the country’s housing supply shortage in the densely populated area, the transport ministry said Wednesday.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it has formed a task force with the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Seoul city, Gyeonggi and Incheon regional governments to discuss ways to supply more homes in the capital city and adjacent areas.
In less than a week, the government has changed its stance toward easing the construction ban in the development restriction areas designated by the country to resolve housing shortage problems.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but does anyone still think all of Yongsan Garrison will become a park?
The ROK government will scream about the environmental damage the evil Japanese and Americans did at Yongsan and “save the babies” so we have to build a giant complex of housing and businesses to fix it because the evil Japanese and Americans won’t clean it up.
I thought commie moon was all green and woke.
Looking forward to seeing Yongsan Premium Park Heights apart-uhs.
2ID Doc, American military pollution in US base camps in Korea, I understand the issues. But why are you bringing the Japanese into the US base pollution issue? Furthermore, it has been the South Korean government which has been paying for and quietly cleaning up the mess that the US military has left. What is the problem?
Beijing boy doesn’t even know RoK history… Tsk tsk… The kids the Reds send out these days… They used to have a higher standard…
Meanwhile, I predict that Yongsan will rival Chamsil in numbers of crummy apartments. Probably toss in a sharia-friendly zone, too.
@setnaffa I’ll educate our resident not quite Korean… @Korean Man Yongsan before 1945 was the headquarters for the Imperial Japanese Army in Korea. After the Korean War the property was given to to Eighth Army and the USFK to use as a headquarters. At some point the US started to withdraw troops and generally abandon US camps around Korea. The agreement made with the Korean government was the US would leave the structures and the general area “as-is” basically the US would lock the gates and hand the keys off to the Koreans. This worked well for decades, the US would leave a camp and quite often the Korean military would simply take over, most well known was the camp in Uijongbu where the author of the book, movie & TV series MASH was stationed during the Korean War. The MASH camp was given back and at least through the 1980s was a Korean Army base. In the 1990s environmental activists started complaining that the US military was poisoning Korea and leaving these damaged bases for the Koreans to clean up. The US spent millions cleaning the bases to US EPA standards (which are higher than Korean standards) only to face more complaints. At some point around 2000, the US quit realizing there was no pleasing the activists and curtailed the clean ups. The US I think is still cleaning up severe and more recent problems as they should for the health & safety of the military and the public, but according to the agreements Yongsan will be handed over “as-is”.
2ID Doc. Thanks for the long history lesson but absolutely none of that adresses my question.
There is no profit in green spaces. Greed will always prevail.
The oil slick (stream)behind CFC Hq was targeted many times. The crap was coming from vegetable Hill and the ROK DARPA to the N. Pollution was measured at output from Main Post. Of course the ROK blamed the US. Koreans will always transfer blame.
I believe I did answer the question. Yongsan was first used (and therefore polluted) by the Japanese long before the US arrived. the US has paid for cleanup at camps despite an agreement that any cleanup would be done by the ROK. My guess (rightly by history) is that once the US finally leaves Yongsan, environmental groups will pressure the US & ROK governments to get the US to pay for clean up, again in violation of signed agreements. Since land, especially land in Seoul is so valuable, even if the cleanup is to US standards, lawmakers will declare Yongsan to be too polluted to be used as a park so they will authorize expensive high rises on the property. The question is Is the golf course still in good shape? When I served there in the 1980s the Koreans who cared for the golf course claimed that once they tossed the Yankees (their term) out of Yongsan, they planned with financial backers to turn Yongsan into a world-class golf resort. Now, to be fair these were older Korean men who spent many years caring for the course and I was just a nosy kid from the US, perhaps they were just dreaming, trying to impress me…
Even the US military bases in United States are leaving behind massive pollution that they refuses to clean up, and it will take series of US government bills to clean up the toxic mess in their own home country.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/12/11/here-are-more-than-300-bases-with-possible-toxic-forever-chemical-contamination/