In Korea's car export capital, free parking lots are a graveyard for abandoned vehicles

INCHEON — Songdo was built as a district of the future in Incheon, integrating technology into its infrastructure and touting abundant urban green spaces. But behind its innovative facade, public parking lots have become dumping grounds for abandoned cars.

Still others wait to be shipped overseas, with the Iran war impeding business and leaving the vehicles stranded in the international business district in Yeonsu District.

The longstanding issue took a darker turn when skeletal remains belonging to a woman were recently found inside one of the vehicles.

Police received the report on April 21 from someone who claimed they found their sister’s car in a public parking lot in Songdo, adding that they believed their “sister was inside.” They had previously reported her missing to the police.

The decomposed condition of the body suggested that it had been left unattended in the vehicle for a while, at least two to three years. After investigating, police ruled out foul play.

The startling incident raised an underlying question: How did the body go undiscovered for so long?

The Korea JoongAng Daily visited the parking lot where the woman’s body was found, underneath the Convensia Bridge in Songdo, on June 1. The vehicle in question had since been removed, but even at a glance, it was easy to see that a majority of the parked cars had been abandoned.

Despite Songdo’s sweeping urban design, its public parking spaces were lifeless — the occasional passing driver coming in and out past neglected, dust-covered cars. Such spaces had become a graveyard for vehicles, and unbeknownst to passersby, for a woman as well.

Battered and tattered

Convensia Bridge leads to the convention center of the same name that hosts major international conferences and trade shows. It’s part of Songdo’s ambitious efforts to become a global hub that also houses the headquarters of international organizations such as the Green Climate Fund and foreign university campuses like George Mason University and the State University of New York.

The space — free to use — was occupied by dozens of cars. A banner was put up by the district office urging that cars be moved by the end of the month, as the parking lot is set to undergo construction in July, but the space was still packed with vehicles. 

A gray Kia Morning sat toward the entrance,  devoid of a license plate but covered in a dense blanket of dust on the hood and three faded warning notices issued by the Yeonsu District Office plastered on the windshield. Two of them demanded that the car be moved by a specific date — the older one dating back to Oct. 17 of last year. The other notice said the license plate had been seized due to unpaid taxes. 

An attempt to pull the door handle out of curiosity was met with a surprise: It opened immediately.

The inside was filthy. The seats and floor were covered in dirt and leaves as well as tools and rolls of bubble wrap. Wires dangled from the steering column, suggesting that someone had already tampered with the vehicle. 

Other cars nearby were similarly unsecured and rusty. A black SsangYong Actyon, which bore a warning on its windshield, was missing the trunk window and right taillights, with cracks running down its side.

Squatters’ paradise 

Under current laws in Korea, drivers are only allowed to leave their vehicles at free public parking spaces for up to one month. Warnings are issued to cars that exceed the limit, ordering their owner to remove the vehicle by a specified date to avoid a towing.

The squatters at the Convensia Bridge parking lot have remained there for extended periods of time, some for at least several months, despite the notices, because Yeonsu District Office has virtually no space at its impound lot.

Currently, it can only accommodate up to five vehicles. 

The towed cars are furthermore required to go through as many as five rounds of public auction before they can be sold off or scrapped, which takes months — contributing to the pile of abandoned cars elsewhere.

A Yeonsu District official told the Korea JoongAng Daily that the office has acquired the budget to expand the impound lot in the latter half of this year, which is expected to take roughly six months to complete. They did not confirm how large the new space will be. 

Because there’s effectively little that can be done about parking lot squatters at the moment, some used car dealers have begun exploiting the situation.

The district official said they have been struggling with civil complaints from drivers about the lack of parking space.

“The parking lots have become a revolving door for used cars, with dealers regularly swapping in vehicles in and out before the one-month threshold,” the official said. “It saves them money on storage space as they evade enforcement, unfortunately inconveniencing drivers who actually need to park.”

No home for used cars

Incheon is the country’s leading used-car export hub. The northwestern port city handled about 71 percent of all shipments last year, or about 628,000 units out of 885,313, according to data released by the Korea International Trade Association.

Most of them were bound for the Middle East, but the Iran war has slammed the brakes on the used car export industry due to disruptions to maritime shipping, rising freight costs and delays in cargo shipments.

No wonder, then, why vehicles are continuing to overflow at Songdo’s used-car export hub in Ongnyeon-dong, which spans roughly 500,000 square meters (124 acres) and can accommodate around 20,000 vehicles. The land used to be an amusement park and beach before it shut down in 2011, and is now used by some 1,600 secondhand car dealerships.

As of March, Korea’s exports of used passenger vehicles to the Middle East totaled $65.63 million and 6,636 units, plunging 48.8 percent and 71.8 percent on year, respectively.

With business sluggish and the complex running out of space to store the yet-to-be-sold used cars, nearby public parking lots became the solution for many dealers.

At a separate, nearby temporary parking lot is a vast dirt yard where hundreds of cars are parked, also free of charge. A myriad of them were obviously abandoned, while others displayed stickers of secondhand car dealers. Some had phone numbers written on their windshields that presumably belonged to their previous owners.

When the Korea JoongAng Daily called one of the numbers and asked if they were the owner of a gray Hyundai Sonata, a woman on the other end replied that she had sold it last year through Hey Dealer, an online used-car trading platform.

She was unaware that her car was stuck in limbo.

It appeared to be a similar case with most other cars: a white Mercedes-Benz GLB had its keys inside with the battery still alive in tip-top shape. Elsewhere on the lot, trash brimmed to the top of a blue Hyundai Porter's bed.

As for a white Land Rover Discovery, its rear side window was covered in a layer of dust that a finger had cut through to inscribe the messages "Goodbye" and "We'll cherish the lasting memories. My mom says thank you."

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [[email protected]]