Move-in promise for Seoul's Dongja-dong jjokbang village slips six years; public rental cut from 1,250 households to 1,000 units

SEOUL

The move-in target for a public housing project at the Dongja-dong jjokbang (tiny-room) village in front of Seoul Station, which the government promised in 2021 for "move-in in 2026," has slipped six years to 2032, and public rental housing, 1,250 households in the 2021 plan, has been cut to 1,000 units. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on the 20th that it would designate and give public notice of 47,573.9㎡ around the Dongja-dong jjokbang village in Yongsan-gu as a public housing district. It took five years and eight months from the first announcement to district designation. On the same day, President Lee Jae Myung ordered a "supply blitz" at a Cabinet meeting to shorten the time to groundbreaking as much as possible, but the groundbreaking target for Dongja-dong is 2029, three years away.

2021 promise of 'move-in in 2026' pushed back six years to 2032

On February 5, 2021, the land ministry, the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Yongsan-gu announced a "Plan for Public Housing and Urban Regeneration Projects to Improve the Residential Environment of the Seoul Station Jjokbang Village." In that announcement, attended by then Land Minister Byeon Chang-heum, the government fixed the schedule, saying it "plans to complete district designation this year" and would "begin district planning and compensation next year, break ground on the public housing complex in 2023, move residents in in 2026, and complete development of land for private sale housing in 2030." It named Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) and Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH) as joint project operators.

Set against the schedule in the latest notice, district designation has been delayed five years, from 2021 to 2026; groundbreaking six years, from 2023 to 2029; and move-in six years, from 2026 to 2032. The year 2030, by which the 2021 plan said even development of land for private sale housing would be finished, falls in the year after public housing groundbreaking under the new schedule. This year was originally when jjokbang residents were supposed to be in new homes, but what was actually completed was the first statutory procedure to fix the boundary of the project district.

Land ministry says it will 'push ahead with follow-up procedures without disruption'

The land ministry said in a press release that day that it "is launching in earnest a public housing project to fundamentally improve the poor residential environment of the Dongja-dong jjokbang village in front of Seoul Station and to expand the supply of quality housing in the city center." It described the site as "a core downtown location adjacent to Seoul Station and dense with major business and commercial facilities," and said it also expects the effect of reorganizing it into a high-density mixed-use space along with large-scale housing supply. On the schedule, it said, "After follow-up procedures such as establishing a district plan and compensation and relocation, the target is to break ground in 2029 and complete construction and move residents in in 2032."

The ministry said it would give existing jjokbang residents priority supply of public rental housing with an exclusive area of 21㎡ or more, with cooking facilities, bathrooms and toilets, and heating and cooling for each household, and would provide temporary housing facilities during construction to support them from relocation through resettlement. Of the current Dongja-dong jjokbang village, it said it is "an area where aging buildings are densely packed and basic living facilities are lacking, so improving the residential environment is urgent."

Lee Jae-pyeong, director general for housing supply policy at the land ministry, said, "As the Dongja-dong project has entered the concrete implementation stage with this district designation, it is important to push ahead with follow-up procedures without disruption." Lee added, "Going forward, we will support the stable resettlement of jjokbang residents and pursue the project in cooperation with related agencies while fully gathering the opinions of the residents' council."

Public rental cut from 1,250 households to 1,000 units

It is not only the schedule that has been delayed. The 2021 plan said it would build "a total of 2,410 households, including 1,450 public housing households (1,250 rental and 200 for sale) for the resettlement of existing residents such as jjokbang residents and 960 private sale housing households." The volume in the latest notice is 2,150 units, combining 1,000 public rental units and 1,150 units for sale. The project area, 47,000㎡ in 2021 and 47,573.9㎡ now, has barely changed, but the total volume has fallen by 260 units. In 2021 the government said it would "first build rental housing for the resettlement of some 1,000 existing jjokbang village residents." The latest press release said it would build 1,000 public rental units and supply them first to existing jjokbang residents.

The reduction was concentrated in public rental housing. Public rental fell by 250 units, or 20%, from 1,250 households to 1,000 units. Units for sale fell by only 10, from 1,160 households (200 public sale and 960 private sale) to 1,150 units. The share of public rental in the total fell from about 52% to about 47%.

In 2021 the government also put numbers on its promises of treatment. It said at the time that jjokbang residents "will be able to live in spaces two to three times larger and more pleasant than before at low rents of about 15% of the current level." On temporary housing, too, it specified the location and number of people: "Temporary housing for some 150 jjokbang residents will be created using guesthouses in the project district or modular housing in a park within the project site." What the latest press release promises jjokbang residents is priority supply of public rental housing of "21㎡ or more of exclusive area" and "provision of temporary housing facilities." The 2021 plan said that for households wishing it among about 100 households living in ordinary housing, it "plans to provide temporary housing using jeonse and purchased rental housing in nearby areas," and said it would put welfare and self-sufficiency facilities in the public rental complex for jjokbang residents and a national or public kindergarten, a library and a residents' cafe in the public housing complex. The promises of five years and eight months ago were more specific.

Meanwhile, jjokbang residents have relied on solidarity restaurants and shelters to get by

In 2021 the government introduced the site as "the largest jjokbang village in the country, where some 1,000 people still live." It said residents "pay high rents of about 240,000 won for rooms of less than 6.6㎡ (2 pyeong)," that insulation, soundproofing and heating were poor, and that more than 80% of buildings were over 30 years old. The government explained that the jjokbang village "was formed as the urban poor pushed out in the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the 1960s flocked to the area around Seoul Station," and said, "Recently, redevelopment was pursued under private leadership but fell through due to a lack of relocation measures for jjokbang residents."

In the five years that district designation was delayed, Seoul's jjokbang residents got through meals, heat and cold with public support. According to material released by the Seoul Metropolitan Government on January 20, 2025, the city provided jjokbang residents with 613,096 meals, an average of 1,704 a day, through solidarity restaurants in 2024. In a survey of jjokbang residents that year, 71.5% named solidarity restaurants as their main way of getting meals. The usage rate of solidarity restaurants rose every year, from 65.5% in 2022 to 72.8% in 2023 and 75.8% in 2024. That year, solidarity bathhouses were used 39,654 times, night cold shelters by 1,929 people and night heat shelters by 3,609 people. These figures cover all jjokbang residents in Seoul and are not broken out for Dongja-dong residents alone.

The Namdaemun jjokbang village, between Seoul Station and Namsan, moved at a different pace. The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on October 15, 2025, that 142 households from the Namdaemun (Yangdong District Zones 11 and 12) jjokbang village had completed moving into "Haeden House," public rental housing in the 18-story "Haeden Center" building. The city presented the project as the first private-led case of "relocation first, development later." Haeden House was completed four years after a redevelopment plan decision in December 2021, through a donation of land and facilities, and move-ins began in early September 2025. Namdaemun residents, whose project started in the same year as Dongja-dong's, moved into new homes, while Dongja-dong only completed district designation a year after that.

Compensation dispute erupted four days after first announcement, and solutions remain 'planned'

The starting point of the delay was conflict with land and building owners. On February 9, 2021, four days after the first plan was announced, the land ministry issued explanatory material in response to reports that land and building owners strongly opposed the plan and that the government had announced it without consulting them. The title of the explanatory material was "We will establish compensation and relocation plans while communicating with local residents." In the February 5 plan, the government had said it would give landowners "just compensation in consideration of current land use, transaction cases, etc." and would let businesses continue through business compensation and win-win cooperation shops within the complex.

In the latest press release, issued five years and eight months later, compensation for owners was again presented not as an established system but as a task to be fixed in the future. The land ministry said it "is also pursuing institutional improvements to expand private participation in projects and strengthen compensation for owners of land and other property." It said it "plans" to let a single household holding only one in-kind compensation sale right receive special deductions for long-term residence and other benefits if it transfers the right, and to allow in-kind compensation status to be succeeded once only. It also said a scheme under which residents who lack the means to pay contributions receive profit-sharing housing as in-kind compensation "is scheduled to be introduced." District designation came first, before the compensation rules were finalized. The ministry did not disclose the total project cost, the scale of compensation or the project operator in the latest press release.

In the National Assembly, bills to expand compensation for owners were already introduced in 2024. An amendment to the Special Act on Public Housing submitted on August 28, 2024, by Rep. Kim Ki-pyo and nine others would "expand" those eligible for in-kind compensation in public housing projects that include jjokbang-dense areas "from those who acquired land and housing before June 30, 2021, to those who acquired land and housing before the selection of candidate sites," and would provide some support to owners of multi-household homes and commercial buildings whose rental income is cut off. An amendment submitted on the 19th of the same month by Rep. Kim Jae-seop and nine others proposed letting residents recommend contractors in projects in jjokbang-dense areas. The two bills were discarded on November 28, 2024, at the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, with their contents reflected in an alternative bill. Earlier, on July 31, 2024, Rep. Seo Beom-su and nine others submitted an amendment to "establish a basis for private housing construction businesses that have been supplied with public housing land to be designated as public housing project operators and to carry out construction projects on their own," and the committee's bill review subcommittee examined the bill clause by clause on November 20 and 27 of that year. The "expansion of private participation in projects" put forward in the latest press release is also an agenda item that came before the National Assembly as a bill two years ago. In the latest press release, nearly two years after the National Assembly's deliberations, the government's in-kind compensation improvements remain at the "planned" stage.

Sept. 7 plan that pledged 'abolishing the sunset' ends in a three-year extension

Projects in jjokbang-dense districts such as Dongja-dong are bound by a statutory deadline. The alternative amendment to the Special Act on Public Housing promulgated on September 20, 2024 (Bill No. 2203262, Act No. 20451) "extended the validity period of in-kind compensation for public housing districts including jjokbang-dense districts to December 31, 2026, in line with the validity period of urban public housing complex projects." District designation came just over two months before this deadline.

In its joint inter-ministerial "Housing Supply Expansion Plan" (Sept. 7 plan) of September 7, 2025, the Lee Jae Myung government said, "For public urban complex projects, which have had difficulty gaining momentum, we will abolish the sunset and raise floor area ratios to secure project momentum and supply 50,000 units." The amendment to the Special Act on Public Housing that later passed the National Assembly in August 2026, however, did not abolish the sunset but only extended it. The land ministry explained, "The sunset deadline will be extended by three years, from the end of December this year to December 2029," and "the sunset deadline for public housing district development projects in jjokbang-dense areas will also be extended in the same way."

What the Sept. 7 plan pledged to abolish was the sunset on urban public housing complex projects, and the deadline for in-kind compensation in jjokbang-dense districts has been tied to this sunset since the 2024 amendment. The extended deadline is December 2029, and the groundbreaking target for Dongja-dong presented by the land ministry this time is also 2029. A little over a year after the Sept. 7 plan was announced, "abolition" turned into a "three-year extension," and the Dongja-dong project will again proceed with compensation and relocation under a law with a set deadline.

Yeongdeungpo jjokbang village's 'groundbreaking at end of 2021' also delayed for a fifth year

The Yeongdeungpo jjokbang village project, which the government pursued earlier, followed the same path. On July 15, 2020, the land ministry said it was designating the Yeongdeungpo jjokbang village as a public housing district. At the time, some 360 people were living in spaces of 6.6㎡ or less, and Yeongdeungpo-gu, LH and SH took part as joint project operators. The ministry said it would draw up a district plan during 2021 and "plans to break ground at the end of 2021." The plan was to build 1,200 units, including 370 permanent rental units for jjokbang residents, 220 Happy Housing units and 600 units for sale, and to create a relocation-first complex within the district where jjokbang residents would stay during the project.

On March 9, 2026, the land ministry said Yeongdeungpo jjokbang residents would live in temporary relocation facilities until they move into rental housing in 2029. Of the 96 rooms in the temporary relocation facilities, 76 had been occupied, and relocation had been under way since July 2025 for the 96 people who wished to move in. Vice Land Minister Kim Yi-tak said the ministry plans to select a contractor as soon as residents' relocation from the land to be developed first is completed and to begin construction at the end of the year. A project slated to break ground at the end of 2021 remained, in March 2026, at the stage before choosing a contractor. Yeongdeungpo had still not broken ground in March 2026, five years and eight months after district designation, while Dongja-dong has set a target of breaking ground within three years of district designation.

President orders 'supply blitz,' but Dongja-dong groundbreaking stays at 2029

On the 20th, the day the Dongja-dong district designation was announced, President Lee Jae Myung presided over the 45th Cabinet meeting. According to a written briefing by Cheong Wa Dae senior spokesperson Kang Yu-jung, Lee said, "Housing stability is a key foundation for substantive improvement in people's lives," and ordered a "'supply blitz' that is not bound by existing practices and procedures and shortens as much as possible the time required from land development through various permits to groundbreaking."

The government's supply targets are built on the premise of speed. The Sept. 7 plan said it "plans to push for groundbreaking on 270,000 new homes every year in Seoul and the metropolitan area to supply a total of 1.35 million homes by 2030," calling this "about 1.7 times the supply record of the past three years." In its "Plan to Expand and Speed Up Urban Housing Supply" on January 29, 2026, the land ministry said it would supply a total of 60,000 units, including 13,500 units in Yongsan, counting previously planned Yongsan volumes, and said, "We are making every effort to meet the goal of breaking ground on 1.35 million homes in the metropolitan area." The blueprint for state affairs presented by the State Affairs Planning Committee on August 13, 2025, also included "expanding the supply of public housing for the housing stability of ordinary people."

The Dongja-dong project, announced on the same day, is a public housing district in the heart of downtown Seoul, right in front of Seoul Station. Its groundbreaking target is 2029, three years after district designation, and its move-in target is 2032, six years after. The public rental housing that would have been occupied this year under the 2021 promise has been cut from 1,250 households to 1,000 units, and move-in has been set six years later.

Sources (KST)

• Korea Policy Briefing (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) · 2026-10-20 · 서울역 앞 동자동 쪽방촌 공공주택지구 지정…2150호 공급 · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148973936
• Korea Policy Briefing (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Seoul Metropolitan Government, Yongsan-gu) · 2021-02-05 · 국내 최대규모 서울역 쪽방촌, 새 주거단지로 태어난다 · https://www.korea.kr/briefing/policyBriefingView.do?newsId=148883668
• Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport explanatory material · 2021-02-09 · [설명] 지역 주민과 소통하며 보상 및 이주 계획을 수립하겠습니다. · https://www.korea.kr/briefing/pressReleaseView.do?newsId=156436155
• Cheong Wa Dae written briefing · 2026-10-20 · 제45회 국무회의 결과 · https://m.korea.kr/briefing/presidentView.do?newsId=148973953&gubun=president&pageIndex=1
• Korea Policy Briefing (joint inter-ministerial) · 2025-09-08 · 수도권에 5년 간 주택 135만 호 공급…"실수요자에 공정하게 공급" · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148948818
• Korea Policy Briefing (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) · 2026-01-29 · 도심 주택공급 확대 및 신속화 방안 발표 · https://www.korea.kr/briefing/policyBriefingView.do?newsId=156742030
• Korea Policy Briefing (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) · 2026-08-21 · '9·7 공급대책' 후속법안 국회 통과…주택공급 물량 확대 속도 · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148970409
• Korea Policy Briefing (State Affairs Planning Committee) · 2025-08-13 · 국정기획위, 이재명 정부의 국정 청사진 제시…123대 국정과제 담아 · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148947514
• National Participatory Legislation Center · 의안 제2203262호 공공주택 특별법 일부개정법률안(대안), 2024-09-20 공포 법률 제20451호 · https://opinion.lawmaking.go.kr/gcom/nsmLmSts/out/2203262/detailRP
• National Participatory Legislation Center · 의안 제2203282호 공공주택 특별법 일부개정법률안(김기표의원 등 10인, 2024-08-28 발의) · https://opinion.lawmaking.go.kr/gcom/nsmLmSts/out/2203282/detailRP
• National Participatory Legislation Center · 의안 제2202441호 공공주택 특별법 일부개정법률안(서범수의원 등 10인, 2024-07-31 발의) · https://opinion.lawmaking.go.kr/gcom/nsmLmSts/out/2202441/detailRP
• National Participatory Legislation Center · 의안 제2202921호 공공주택 특별법 일부개정법률안(김재섭의원 등 10인, 2024-08-19 발의) · https://opinion.lawmaking.go.kr/gcom/nsmLmSts/out/2202921/detailRP
• Korea Policy Briefing (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) · 2020-07-15 · 영등포 쪽방촌, 공공주택지구 지정 완료…정비사업에 속도낸다 · https://www.korea.kr/news/cultureColumnView.do?newsId=148874717
• Korea Policy Briefing (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) · 2026-03-09 · 영등포 쪽방 주민에 임시거처 지원…임대주택 입주 전까지 · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148960542
• Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul in My Hand · 2025-01-20 · 쪽방주민과 골목상권까지 챙기는 동행식당·목욕탕… 올해 확대 운영 · https://news.seoul.go.kr/welfare/archives/567435
• Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul in My Hand · 2025-10-15 · 남대문 쪽방주민, 해 드는 새 보금자리 입주… 민간주도 '先이주-後개발' 첫 사례 · https://news.seoul.go.kr/welfare/archives/574248