The Yongsan Park site in Yongsan District, central Seoul on Aug. 23NEWS1
Nearly two out of three Seoul residents oppose building public housing on the Yongsan Park site in central Seoul, according to a survey released Monday.
A total of 63.9 percent of respondents opposed using the site for public housing, nearly twice the 32 percent who supported the proposal, a survey commissioned by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and conducted by polling agency Kstat Research found. Another 4.1 percent said they did not know or did not respond.
The survey was conducted from Thursday through Sunday among 1,000 Seoul residents aged 18 or older.
The planned park covers land that had been used by foreign militaries for more than a century, including as a U.S. military base. The site has become the subject of debate over whether it should be preserved as a public park or partially used for housing in central Seoul, as the government mentioned it as one of the sites for public housing.
Reasons for opposition
Of those who opposed, 46.7 percent strongly opposed housing development at the site, while 17.2 percent generally opposed it. Strong support stood at 16.7 percent, while 15.3 percent said they generally supported the proposal.
Opposition outweighed support across all demographic groups surveyed — by gender, age and area of residence. More than 60 percent of respondents in every age group and each of Seoul's five geographic regions opposed the proposal.
Among women, 66.1 percent opposed the plan, and 61.5 percent of men did as well.
Opposition was highest among people in their 30s at 67.1 percent, followed by those aged 70 or older at 66 percent and those aged 18 to 29 at 64 percent. The figure stood at 63.1 percent among people in their 60s, 61.8 percent among those in their 40s and 61.3 percent among those in their 50s.
Camp Kim, a former U.S. military site in Yongsan District, central Seoul, undergoes soil remediation on Aug. 24.YONHAP
By area, opposition was highest in southeastern Seoul at 70.3 percent. It stood at 65 percent in central Seoul, 63.5 percent in southwestern Seoul, 62.8 percent in northwestern Seoul and 60 percent in northeastern Seoul.
The most common reason for opposition was that “using the park intended for future generations just to address a short-term housing shortage would be shortsighted,” cited by 81.2 percent of respondents in a multiple-response question. The concern was cited by 82.6 percent of female respondents and 79.5 percent of male respondents. The figure exceeded 75 percent across every age group and area.
Another 42.3 percent said “housing could not be supplied quickly because return of the site from the U.S. military and cleaning up contaminated soil would take a long time,” while 41.9 percent cited concerns about “increased traffic congestion and strain on infrastructure such as water and sewage systems.”
Reasons for support
Those who supported housing development most commonly cited its “potential to improve housing stability for people who do not own homes,” with 69.3 percent selecting the reason in the multiple-answer question.
Another 56.1 percent said “providing public housing rather than allowing private development could better serve the public interest,” while 44.3 percent cited the advantages of “making use of a well-located site in central Seoul.”
The Seoul government plans to use the survey results as reference material in discussions with the central government on the development of Yongsan Park and deliberations over Seoul's housing supply policies.
A pedestrian looks at rows of funeral wreaths standing outside the entrance to Yongsan Children’s Park in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Aug. 9, in protest of the government’s consideration of housing development at Yongsan Park site.NEWS1
"The survey showed broad public support for preserving the public value of Yongsan Park, separate from the need to supply housing," Ahn Dae-hee, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Future Urban Spaces Planning Bureau, said. "We will closely examine the concerns and demands reflected in both opposing and supporting views and work to develop Yongsan Park as an open public space that future generations can also enjoy."
The survey was conducted through telephone interviews using random digit dialing, or RDD, in which randomly generated phone numbers are called to recruit respondents. Landline calls accounted for 20 percent of the sample, while mobile calls accounted for 80 percent.
The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level and a response rate of 10.2 percent.
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.
