Yongsan Park Instead of Housing: Green Welfare or Green Inequality?

The debate over Seoul’s future Yongsan Park has opened an uncomfortable question: can a vast green space serve the public while leaving many residents unable to afford a home nearby?

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In the climate crisis era, it is important not only to achieve carbon neutrality in industry but also to restore biodiversity in ecosystems. Securing a large green area at Yongsan can ease the urban heat-island effect, while expanding permeable ground can improve flooding and drought conditions.

The dispute intensified after Land, Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kim Yoon-duk said on Aug. 14 that the government should consider building public housing, including rental and youth housing, on an appropriate part of the park site. The proposal brought the ministry and Seoul Metropolitan Government into conflict, as well as lawmakers from the Democratic Party and People Power Party. The dividing line has not followed the usual progressive-conservative pattern. Progressive parties and housing-rights groups have responded positively or neutrally, while environmental organizations and landscape experts have opposed construction.

Environmental groups say the former Yongsan base offers a rare chance to secure a large urban green area during the climate crisis. Park Eun-jung of Green Korea said restoring biodiversity, easing the urban heat-island effect and expanding permeable ground could help address flooding and drought. Others emphasize the site’s role in linking Mount Namsan to the Han River. Former land minister Byun Chang-heum said previous Democratic governments protected the entire base as a park and included nearby sites to preserve that green corridor. He called the housing proposal a sudden reversal of that policy.

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If housing is supplied at Yongsan once, they will try to release more land whenever necessary, and this could be repeated in other parks or green belts.

The government has said it would use only 10% to 20% of the 3 million-square-meter park. Environmentalists remain skeptical, warning that once housing is allowed, further releases could follow at Yongsan and other parks or green belts. Landscape scholar Bae Jung-han also says the land’s history, marked by successive Chinese, Japanese and U.S. military deployments since 1882, requires healing and restoration rather than what he called short-sighted populism focused on housing supply.

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Park creation and river restoration should assess social impacts such as housing prices, rents, population composition and residential stability, not only environmental effects.

Supporters of public housing frame the issue as one of fairness. The park’s land could be worth an estimated 50 trillion to 100 trillion won at surrounding land prices, while taxpayers would cover construction and operating costs. Research cited in the discussion warns that green infrastructure can trigger “green gentrification,” pushing out existing residents as property prices rise. KAIST professor Kim Seung-kyum says projects should assess housing prices, rents, population changes and residential stability alongside environmental effects. Housing advocates therefore call for a compromise that combines parkland with public housing, arguing that Seoul’s low public-housing share and high prices make shared public land too important to leave out of the discussion.

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If you return from resting at Yongsan Park to a rented room or a semi-basement home, what would that life be like? Yongsan Park is necessary, but good housing is necessary too, so the two should be reconciled.