On the 80th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, may I say: It was a good thing that Neville Chamberlain had the good grace not to hoist a giant picture of Adolf Hitler on London's City Hall in 1938. https://t.co/4Lr9On1Y4K
More apartment construction is coming to the greater Seoul area:
The former site of the Seongdong Detention Center in Songpa District, southeastern Seoul, on Friday. [YONHAP]The government named 17 sites where 35,000 apartment units will be built in the greater Seoul area, one of its attempts to cool off the overheated real estate market.
This is the first batch of sites the government announced. An additional 13 sites and 265,000 units will be announced later, including four to five “new cities” to be built next to the first generation of new cities such as Ilsan and Bundang in Gyeonggi.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Friday said it plans to supply 10,000 apartment units in Seoul on 11 sites. However only two areas in Seoul were disclosed as it is still working with the Seoul city government. The ministry said the Seoul government will announce the nine remaining sites.
The ones that were disclosed were Songpa District, southeastern Seoul, where the relocated Seongdong Detention Center used to stand, and Gaepo-dong, Gangnam District, southern Seoul. The two sites that were named are located on the edge of the nation’s capital, contrary to previous speculation that they would be located in the center of the city. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but Uijongbu has been selected as a suburb of Seoul that will also have more apartments constructed. The government has not released where the apartments will be built, but with the closure of Camp Red Cloud in the near future, the old USFK military base could become yet another area in Korea covered in apartments.
Fortunately this happened when no kids where in school:
A kindergarten building in southern Seoul has tilted after a retaining wall at a nearby construction site collapsed. No casualties were reported but the incident led to the evacuation of some 50 people at one point.
Our Bae Joo-yon has more.
Report: According to local authorities, the three-story Sangdo Kindergarten in the southern district of Dongjak tilted about ten degrees after the wall designed to prevent subsidence caved in at around 11:20 p.m. Thursday.
There were no casualties as the building was empty at the time but some 50 local residents had to evacuate and take shelter at a community center and hotel on Thursday night before returning home on Friday morning. [KBS World Radio]
There is so little green space around Seoul as it is and it appears there may soon be even less:
The Korean government is mulling the option of developing regions in Seoul designated as greenbelt areas to increase apartment supply in the city.
According to local media reports in Korea, the Ministry of Land, Transport and Infrastructure is looking into securing land in Seoul that could be developed into residential areas. Options on the table for the Land Ministry includes greenbelt areas with relatively less conservation value compared to other areas as well as abandoned land in the city.
Greenbelt zones are protected areas of land where building is not permitted to protect the environment.
Lawmakers and top officials, including ruling Democratic Party Chairman Lee Hae-chan and Blue House policy chief Jang Ha-sung, have said that the government wants to significantly increase the supply of apartments in Seoul. The stance indicates an about-face in the government’s real estate policy.
As recently as last week, top officials, including Land Minister Kim Hyun-mee, said that the supply of housing in Korea is sufficient. Up until now, government measures focused on tight control over speculation on existing apartments. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but does anyone still think that all of Yongsan Garrison once it is vacated will become a city park?
A photo of Gwanghwamun in central Seoul taken by a thermal image camera, right, shows that the temperature in the area is very high. The temperature in Seoul peaked at 39.6 degrees Celsius (103.3 degrees Fahrenheit) at 3:36 p.m. Wednesday. The photo on the left was taken with a normal camera. [YONHAP]Wednesday was the hottest day ever recorded in Seoul.
The temperature in the city peaked at 39.6 degrees Celsius (103.3 degrees Fahrenheit) at 3:36 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). It broke the record from the summer of 1994, when the mercury hit 38.4 degrees Celsius.
The temperature in Seoul Wednesday set the record for the highest temperature in the city since the KMA started to keep record of temperatures from 1907.
Wednesday was also the day Korea’s highest temperature ever was recorded: The temperature in Hongcheon, Gangwon, hit 41 degrees Celsius, breaking the record of highest temperature recorded in Korea, which was 40 degrees Celsius in Daegu in 1942. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
This was very lucky that no one was at home at the time of the collapse and the businesses were closed or this could have been quite a tragedy:
Police officers and firefighters examine the rubble of a collapsed building in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Monday. The building was completed in 1966 and collapsed on Sunday. Residents believe the cause was cracks in the foundation. [YONHAP]Residents of a four-story building that collapsed in central Seoul on Sunday are blaming the Yongsan District Office for ignoring their complaints about cracks in the foundation that they called a recipe for disaster.
The building, which consisted of restaurants on the first and second floors and living quarters on the third and fourth, collapsed at 12:35 p.m. A 68-year-old woman living on the top floor sustained non-life-threatening injuries, according to police. The other residents were not at home, and the restaurants were all closed, which prevented further casualties.
Authorities have yet to identify the precise cause of the accident. Because the building was completed in 1966, police and firefighters believe it was the outcome of progressive deterioration. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but of course government authorities are alleged to have blown off reports from the residents of crack they seen forming in the building. This appears to be another example of the poor safety culture in South Korea.
Pretty interesting profile below from Yonhap about a man in Seoul fighting to keep his home after his neighborhood was selected for redevelopment:
Cho Han-jeong’s two story house is the only one in Jangwi-dong’s seventh zone still inhabited. (Yonhap)
In the morning of Jan. 20, 2009, six people — five protesters and one police officer — were killed in a blaze atop a gutted building in Yongsan, central Seoul. The five civilian victims were protesting against a forceful eviction by the authorities for a mega urban renewal project.
Nine years has passed. And one man has risked his life for a similar reason: to protect the house that he built in 1986 in Jangwi-dong, northern Seoul. On November 7, he stabbed himself in the abdomen when officials came to forcibly remove him and his wife from the two-story brick house. (…….)
The redevelopment project divided Jangwi-dong into 15 zones and Cho’s house belongs to the seventh zone. On March 20, 2009, the zone’s redevelopment union was established after 76.61 percent — slightly over the minimum requirement of 75 percent — of the land owners approved the plan. Those opposed had to sell the house according to real estate values determined by certified public appraisers.
In Cho’s case, along with those of many others, the value failed to properly reflect market prices. Having injured his back while serving in the military, he doesn’t have a regular income. His family lives on the rent from the tenants of four small shops on the first floor and one in the basement.
With the cash compensation, it is impossible to find a house that can provide him with similar monthly income, as the redevelopment project has pushed up real estate prices in nearby areas. [Yonhap]
You can read much more at the link, but Mr. Cho’s house now has become a hardened fortress complete with activists protecting it to stop people from trying to evict him.
It will be interesting to see how strictly this is enforced:
Boarding bus passengers will now be greeted by signs telling them not to bring food and beverages on with them.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government put up signs at every bus stop and bus on Thursday. The signs read, “Let’s not carry coffee or any other food and beverages when boarding the bus. Bus drivers may deny passengers carrying any food or beverages in cups, or other unsanitary and dangerous items to maintain safety and prevent any harm to passengers.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
