Gangseo residents oppose a development plan to add public housing units in the district during a community briefing on Sept. 11.YONHAP
Tensions are boiling over in Gangseo District, western Seoul, where residents who oppose plans for a school for North Korean defector families and public housing say they have been “demonized.”
Efforts to ease the dispute have made little headway: A government-led briefing collapsed, and some residents have even requested an audit, prolonging the standoff.
The emergency committee, which represents the district’s residents and opposes the construction of Yeomyung School, submitted a proposal requesting an administrative audit to the Seoul Metropolitan Council on Saturday. The school educates children who fled North Korea or the children of North Korean defectors.
“When Yeomyung School moved onto the site of Yeomgang Elementary School, we were promised that its use would be temporary,” the committee said. “That has recently changed to permanent use. The site was originally supposed to house the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s early childhood education institute and facilities for young children. An audit should determine why the policy was reversed.”
Yeomyung has operated out of the Yeomgang building since 2023.
Yeomyung School’s use of the site was originally set to expire in February next year. That changed in July, when the school, the Ministry of Unification, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and Hyundai Motor Group signed an agreement to construct a new building at the same location and operate the school there from 2029. The education office agreed to provide the site, Hyundai Motor Group pledged about 6 billion won ($4.42 million) for the project and the Unification Ministry promised administrative support.
A slogan opposing "reckless development" in Gangseo District is displayed on a fence in the district in western Seoul on Sept. 27.KIM JEONG-JAE
The two sides remain at odds. The emergency committee is demanding that the plan be withdrawn because it was decided without consultation, while the education office says there were no procedural flaws.
School Principal Cho Myeong-sook dropped to her knees and pleaded with residents to “embrace the children” at a community briefing held at Yeomyung School on Sept. 17.
Residents responded by kneeling as well. “Please save us, too,” they said.
Some residents criticized the meeting itself.
“They gave us just one day’s notice, and now they are appealing to emotion,” one person said. “Doesn’t that just make us out to be the villains?”
A banner from the opposition People Power Party denounces "reckless development" in the Gangseo District on Sept. 27.KIM JEONG-JAE
Just an 800-meter (2,624-foot) walk from Yeomyung School, residents are locked in another dispute. The government announced plans in August to supply about 1,000 public housing units around Yeomchang Park. Residents in the surrounding area have opposed the project and argued that local infrastructure needs to be expanded before more homes are added.
Banners opposing the development were visible throughout apartment complexes near Yeomchang Park on Sunday. Many carried the message: “No to a concrete jungle.”
"We believed the government when it promised to turn the site into green space for residents," said a resident surnamed Lee. "How could they pull the rug out from under us like this?"
Another person also said residents should no longer stay naive.
“Gangseo District already has a disproportionate share of facilities that often meet local resistance, including public rental housing and special education schools, so they seem to think the district is an easy target,” Yang, a district resident of 20 years, said. “More residents are starting to feel that if we sit back and say nothing, we will get steamrolled.”
Yeomchang Park in Gangseo DistrictKIM JEONG-JAE
The Yeomchang residential environment emergency committee — representing residents — held a rally outside the Gangseo-Gu Council against unplanned development last Wednesday.
Yeomchang Park’s troubled development history stretches back decades. The site was designated a neighborhood park in 1977, and a private developer began work in 1990. The developer was permitted to build revenue-generating facilities, including a driving range, on the condition that it also provide a cultural center, youth center, senior center and other public amenities. The commercial facilities went up, but the public amenities did not. Gangseo District revoked approval for the project in 2006, and development has been in limbo ever since.
Tensions boiled over at a community briefing on the Yeomchang-dong development led by the district office on Sept. 11.
Residents protested outside the venue and chanted, “Keep your promise to build the park,” among other slogans. Some blocked Gangseo District head Jin Gyo-hoon’s official vehicle when he attempted to leave. The deputy district mayor also traded heated words with residents.
The dispute is now spilling into local politics. In a KakaoTalk chat room run by the emergency committee, residents have accused the ruling Democratic Party of “selling out the district” and said they would “judge district head Jin and Rep. Han Jeoung-ae at the ballot box in the next election.”
Local constituency chiefs from the main opposition People Power Party have thrown their support behind the emergency committee’s protests and demanded that authorities “halt reckless development that ignores residents.”
“I don’t see an easy resolution to this dispute,” said a district official who requested anonymity.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
