Why Seoul is up in arms over the future of Yongsan Park, a former U.S. military base

On a sunny afternoon on Sept. 3, Lee Kyeong-hye watched her 2-year-old daughter frolic across the sparse grassland of Yongsan Children's Park in central Seoul, the site of a former U.S. military base at the center of a controversy over housing development.

The resident of Gangdong District, eastern Seoul, brought her mother along to enjoy a space that has welcomed more than 1 million visitors since opening in May 2023, with this year already marking a record high for a swath of land that may disappear under a government-led project.

“This is a beloved park that families visit. It’s absurd that they’re trying to get rid of it to build rental houses,” Lee told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “There aren’t enough green spaces in Seoul in the first place. It feels like the plan was proposed by people who didn’t give it much thought.”

A father surnamed Kim, from Seongdong District, eastern Seoul, also visited the park for the first time with his 1-year-old daughter after hearing that it “might disappear someday.”

“I love how natural this park feels,” Lee said as he pointed across the park’s low-rise brick buildings, open lawns and towering trees. “It’s important for children to grow up surrounded by nature to grow up healthy and happy. [The housing development] is just stripping them of the opportunity to do so in the city.”

The opposition was even more visible in the form of some 100 funeral wreaths lining the sidewalks at the park’s entrance. A symbol of public protest in Korea, the wreaths were adorned with ribbon messages in Korean that said, “We can’t bear the current administration; now you’re getting rid of children’s parks?” and “Does Seoul need more concrete? Please protect the areas where our children can run around.”

The pleas were a response to an announcement by outgoing Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Kim Yun-duk on Aug. 14 that the central government is mulling a plan to turn the entire Yongsan Park site into housing development.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government, Yongsan District Office, Seoul residents and environment experts have publicly opposed the proposal, arguing that the green space needs to be preserved and any housing development plans need to be reviewed extensively. A recent survey found that nearly two-thirds of respondents living in Seoul are against building public housing on the site.

Yet, the government has not officially backed down on the proposal.

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What’s the deal with Yongsan Park?

Despite its prime location in the heart of Seoul and its expansive footprint, the Yongsan Park site was long off-limits to Koreans.

The large grassy estate was a former U.S. military garrison that is currently being returned to Korea. Before that, the site served as a base for other foreign troops for centuries.

Foreign military presence at Yongsan can be traced back to the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), when Mongol forces invaded the kingdom under Kublai Khan, the founder of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Yuan used Yongsan as a military supply base and exercised political leverage over Goryeo.

Because of its proximity to the Han River, Yongsan developed into a hub for river-based trade and logistics, making it particularly important for military purposes.

Afterward, during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), Yongsan was occupied by Japanese troops during the Imjin War (1592-98) and later by Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) soldiers following the Imo Incident of 1882, a violent revolt by Joseon’s soldiers who were furious over discrimination and overdue wages. At Joseon’s request, some 3,000 Qing soldiers had been dispatched to the kingdom to help suppress the uprising, but withdrew after China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95).

Yongsan then became solely occupied by Japanese troops, who remained after the country's victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) and throughout its 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea, eventually withdrawing in 1945 after Japan’s defeat in World War II and Korea’s liberation.

U.S. troops were stationed there from 1953, when the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire through an armistice agreement.

Over the years, Korea’s presidents pledged to make efforts to retrieve the Yongsan garrison land. In 1988, the Roh Tae-woo administration was the first to formally announce plans to have the U.S. military base returned and developed into a park.

The Roh Moo-hyun administration later pursued and achieved the enactment of the Special Act on the Creation of Yongsan Park in 2007, which laid the legal groundwork for developing the site as Korea’s first and only national urban park.

The former U.S. military base has been returned to the Korean government in parcels since 2020, with only about 25.6 percent of the site returned so far, according to the Yongsan District Office.

Currently, it spans 3 million square meters (741 acres) and houses the National Museum of Korea and U.S. officers’ housing, with the War Memorial of Korea and the former site for the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) abutting the base.

Only a portion of the land is open to the public, with one of the most popular areas being Yongsan Children’s Park near Sinyongsan Station on line No. 4, which is located inside the main park site.

By law, Yongsan Park is defined by two chunks: the main park site and the surrounding development site, which includes the former Camp Kim, United Nations Command and U.S. military transportation corps sites.

After the remaining land is recovered and fully developed, the site will be roughly 14 times larger than Yeouido Park in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul, and twice the size of Hyde Park in London.

Why are the central government and Seoul city government clashing over Yongsan Park?

The conflict stems from the competing demands to preserve green space and increase housing supply in Seoul.

Last month, Land Minister Kim announced that the government is “considering the entire Yongsan Park site [as a potential housing site].”

Angry citizens took to the streets by installing funeral wreaths at the entrance of Yongsan Children’s Park, which at one point peaked at 300. The Seoul Metropolitan Government and Yongsan District Office immediately fired back against the plan, saying that the proposal goes against the current law of keeping the park as a “valuable asset for future generations” and that going forth without sufficient public consensus would undermine the park’s original purpose and national value.

Minister Kim and Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon met on multiple occasions to bridge their differences, but progress remained elusive. With President Lee Jae Myung's recent nomination of current Vice Land Minister Hong Jee-sun to succeed his boss, discussions have remained at a stalemate, expected to resume after the new minister takes over. The park controversy is seen as one of several reasons Kim is being replaced.

In a parliamentary confirmation hearing that took place at the National Assembly on Wednesday, Hong said that reaching an agreement with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and building public consensus should be prioritized. He added that no specific development plan has been drawn up and that legislation is still essential.

"The crux of the issue is that the park's core areas must definitely be protected," he said. "If there are ways to contribute to housing stability for future generations, we will consider those as well."

While Minister Kim has later walked back his intention to consider the entire site for public housing, he reiterated support for the idea that the development should aid young people, newlyweds and families with more than one child.

Mayor Oh, on the other hand, has firmly maintained that the urban green space should be preserved wholly for future generations as a “space for quality of life and leisure.”

“A Seoul mayor who agrees to use it as a housing site will go down in history as a sinner,” he said.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government released a statement saying that while it supports the government’s broader goal of expanding public housing supply, it should be done in urban areas with established jobs, transportation and other essential infrastructure, not in green spaces.

“We should look for a way to achieve both,” Minister Kim said on Aug. 20 regarding the park’s preservation and housing development. “I fully agree with the fundamental principle that Yongsan Park must be preserved.”

Even if the housing development proceeds, however, the Seoul government has questioned whether it is a proper solution to the immediate housing shortage in the capital.

Not only has the U.S. military yet to return the remainder of the site, but soil remediation work would also be required upon retrieval. That process alone would take seven to 10 years on top of the time needed to complete construction and for residents to move in.

What is the main point of contention over the site?

The Yongsan Park site is tightly regulated under current law. The 2007 law on the establishment of the park stipulates that the main park site is only allowed to be developed as a green space.

Article 4-2 explicitly prohibits the government from changing the main site’s use to purposes other than a park, as well as selling or disposing it.

In other words, for Minister Kim’s housing development proposal to come to fruition, an amendment is essential.

Yongsan Park’s surrounding development sites can be converted for mixed uses such as housing, commercial and cultural facilities, but there are green-space requirements that need to be met.

For example, under the current law, the Camp Kim site must provide 3 square meters of green space per person when undergoing development.

An amendment to ease green-space requirements at the surrounding development sites is already underway, with the government seeking to allow 3 square meters of green space per household, as it aims to increase the site’s housing capacity from 1,400 to 2,500.

But a recent National Assembly petition demanded that the pending amendment be discarded and that lawmakers not pursue any future legislation that would allow housing development in any part of Yongsan Park — including Yongsan Children’s Park.

The petition and the Seoul Metropolitan Government argue that if the amendment passes, it will open the door to development in other areas, including the main park site.

The petition closed on Sunday with 55,936 signatures, meaning that it will be referred to the National Assembly’s relevant committees for review.

“We demand that the National Assembly uphold the principle it established in 2007: that all returned land be turned into a park,” the petition reads, calling the pending amendment “undermining the foundation of the law.”

The petition also criticized the amendment for moving forward without sufficient construction inspection and public discussions.

For the public, what does it mean to lose Yongsan Park, even if only parts of it?

Land Minister Kim has stressed numerous times that the Korean government only intends to construct housing on areas that no longer serve as green spaces, like the military apartments and the former DAPA site, which he described as “damaged” land.

However, Mayor Oh has pushed back, saying it’s simply wrong to characterize it as "damaged" because the park is still under development. Minister Kim’s comments, he said, run counter to the original purpose of the Yongsan Park project, which is to transform concrete-covered sites into green spaces.

“Even for the parts of the land that were actually damaged, the more damaged a site is, the more it should be restored and returned to nature. That’s the basic purpose and goal of a park,” Zoh Kyung-jin, a professor at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Environmental Studies, told the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Seoul also lacks accessible green space relative to its size. In total, the city has 17.96 square meters of green space per person. That figure is comparable to New York City’s 14.7 square meters but well below London’s 33.4 square meters, according to data released by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

But the amount of green space that residents can actually access is much smaller. Excluding green spaces that are difficult to reach, Seoul has just 5.75 square meters of accessible green space per person. That means if Yongsan Park were to be scrapped for housing, that number would sink even lower.

“Seoul’s accessible green space is significantly lower than other cities because of its vast mountainous terrain,” Prof. Zoh said. “While the city has many great mountainous parks, it’s better to have parks on flat ground that more people can easily enjoy.”

“This is another ‘third space’ where families and communities can get together,” said Sarah Dean, a Yongsan resident who recently moved with her family from Chicago and was visiting the park with her dog. “It’s rare for the big cities to have so much open land. There’s a very complicated history, obviously, but for future generations, it’s important to preserve places like this.”

BY SHIN MIN-HEE, SHIN WOO-JIN [[email protected]]