First Incheon Gyeyang move-ins at least a year behind 2021 government outlook; president orders shorter supply timelines

SEOUL

First move-ins at Incheon Gyeyang, the first of the third-generation new towns to be occupied, have been set for December 2026, at least a year later than the 2025 move-in outlook the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport gave for pre-subscription homes when it finalized the district plan in 2021. President Lee Jae Myung visited the site on the afternoon of the 20th, pointed to a decline in housing permits in 2022-2025 as the cause of a supply gap, and stressed that supply timelines must be brought forward, saying, "Now is a time of emergency." Cheong Wa Dae senior spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said in a written briefing the same day that the president also ordered a review of raw land sales and a review of legislation to shorten the duration of lawsuits over compulsory expropriation. Incheon Gyeyang-gu B is the constituency from which Lee was elected to the 21st and 22nd National Assemblies.

In 2021 the land ministry projected Incheon Gyeyang pre-subscription homes would be occupied in 2025

Incheon Gyeyang was the first of the third-generation new towns to have its district plan finalized. In a press release on June 2, 2021, the land ministry said it would give notice of approval of the Incheon Gyeyang district plan on June 3, and that it would build a new town of about 3.33 million㎡ with about 17,000 homes for a population of about 39,000. It included 6,066 integrated public rental units (35% of the total, seven blocks) and 2,815 public sale units (six blocks). For pre-subscription that July, it planned to offer 1,050 units, including 709 general public sale units and 341 Newlywed Hope Town units.

The schedule was also set out in the same press release. The land ministry said, "Homes subject to pre-subscription are expected to go through main subscription in 2023 and be occupied in 2025." Kim Kyu-cheol, then head of the Public Housing Promotion Group, said, "Starting with Incheon Gyeyang, we plan to finalize all district plans for the third-generation new towns within the year and to push ahead with pre-subscription for the third-generation new towns without disruption so as to bring forward opportunities for genuine buyers who do not own a home to become homeowners."

Pre-subscription was presented as a policy tool to bring move-ins forward. The same press release said that, starting with Incheon Gyeyang, 30,200 public sale homes on public housing land in the metropolitan area would be supplied early through pre-subscription from the second half of that year, and that 32,000 homes would be offered for pre-subscription in 2022. Namyangju Wangsuk 2 (1,400 units) would take pre-subscriptions in October, Hanam Gyosan (1,000 units) in November, and Namyangju Wangsuk (2,300 units), Bucheon Daejang (1,900 units) and Goyang Changneung (1,700 units) in December. In the land use plan, parks and green space accounted for 27% and self-sufficiency (jobs) land for 22%, and the land ministry said the jobs land was about 1.7 times the size of Pangyo Techno Valley and the parks and green space about four times the size of Yeouido Park. The plan also included creating "Gyeyang Byeori," a linear park reachable on foot within five minutes from anywhere, and developing a smart city with a digital twin-based urban management system and a city of care and education. Daily convenience facilities were to be placed within a 200-300m walking radius.

First move-in date the government gave this month pushed back to December 2026

At the 1st regular housing supply briefing on the 16th, the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the land ministry said, "In particular, we plan to proceed quickly with move-ins in the third-generation new towns, starting with Incheon Gyeyang this December." Compared with the 2025 date in the 2021 press release, the first move-in has been pushed back by at least 12 months. The main subscription date of 2023 and move-in date of 2025 given for the 1,050 pre-subscription units in July 2021 both came from this plan.

The same regular briefing also included this year's groundbreaking and sales results for the third-generation new towns. The government said that by the second week of October, "16,200 public housing units, including 7,300 units in third-generation new towns such as Goyang Changneung, Incheon Gyeyang and Hanam Gyosan," had broken ground in the metropolitan area. By the end of the year, it said, it would announce "10,000 units, including about 2,000 units in third-generation new towns," for public sale. Including public rental, the volume for which residents will be recruited by the end of the year is 15,000 units or more, and public rental accounts for 5,000 units or more, including 1,400 units at Gwacheon Knowledge Information Town. The government also set out a plan to push for move-ins at about 100,000 public housing units in the metropolitan area from the fourth quarter of 2026 through the end of 2027. The government again presented its goal of breaking ground on 1.5 million or more homes in the metropolitan area over the five years through 2030, and set as this year's goal "groundbreaking on a total of 268,000 units, including 62,000 public housing units."

Before the meeting, Lee went up to the roof of an apartment building where finishing work was under way and was briefed on the "site conditions for the Incheon Gyeyang and Bucheon Daejang new towns" by LH's head of the Gyeyang-Bucheon project division. At the meeting, Land Minister Hong Ji-sun reported on the "status of housing supply in the metropolitan area," and LH CEO Lee Seong-hun on the "housing supply implementation plan and status of first move-ins in the third-generation new towns." Lee said there that Incheon Gyeyang "is of great significance in that it is the first fruit of housing supply in the third-generation new towns." Lee said, "The standard by which the public feels housing supply is ultimately 'move-in.'" From notice of the district plan approval in June 2021 to first move-ins in December 2026, Incheon Gyeyang will have taken five years and six months. That is more than a year longer than the roughly four-year schedule drawn up in the 2021 plan.

Two months before move-in, future residents ask for faster metropolitan transport measures

The 2021 district plan also tied the transport schedule to the move-in date. The land ministry planned an S-BRT (a premium bus rapid transit with subway-level speed and punctuality) running from Gimpo Airport Station through the Gyeyang and Daejang districts to Bucheon Sports Complex, and said it "plans to push ahead with related procedures without disruption in line with the first move-ins in 2025." It said the metropolitan transport improvement measures as a whole would be completed by 2026. The S-BRT was envisioned to connect with Lines 5, 7 and 9, the Airport Railroad and GTX-B, with five stations within the new town, 7×3 axes of bicycle and personal mobility (PM) roads and five green pedestrian systems. The public institution preliminary feasibility study for the S-BRT had already been completed at the time. Plans to widen National Route 39 (Beolmal-ro) and Gyeongmyeong-daero and to build a Seoul-bound access road and interchange on the Incheon International Airport Expressway were also included.

At the meeting on the 20th, two months before the first move-ins, future residents said most residents are expected to commute to Seoul and asked that metropolitan transport improvement measures such as metropolitan buses be prepared quickly. According to the Cheong Wa Dae briefing, experts at the meeting stressed that the gap between building transport infrastructure and move-ins should be minimized. Two months remain in 2026, the year by which the government said it would complete the metropolitan transport improvement measures.

Incheon Mayor Park Chan-dae replied that he would prepare transport measures as far as possible. Lawmaker Kim Nam-jun said he would pay close attention because residents' demands regarding railways and living conditions are high. A couple moving in through the special supply for newlyweds said many people around them did not know the system well and asked for active publicity. YouTuber "Ayeong-ine Happy Housing" proposed raising the deposit limit when the income of Happy Housing tenants rises. The point was that tenants should be able to build assets without being evicted for exceeding asset criteria.

Cheong Wa Dae says it will speed up through raw land sales and legislative fixes to lawsuit durations

According to the Cheong Wa Dae written briefing, Lee instructed, "Raw land sales can considerably shorten supply periods, so please review them fundamentally." He asked the land ministry and LH to pool their capabilities to raise project speed as much as possible across the entire process of public housing land development and to achieve housing supply targets without disruption. Lee instructed that "a dramatic increase in financial incentives for rapid supply also be reviewed."

Lee pointed to expropriation procedures as one of the causes of project delays. Pointing out "whether extending the period through civil litigation procedures in cases of compulsory expropriation is not a problem of legislative deficiency," Lee instructed officials to report separately after a legal review of whether there is a way to address it through legislation. After hearing Minister Hong's report, he pointed out as a problem that consultations among related ministries on increasing LH staffing had not yet been completed. After CEO Lee's report, he separately checked the status of increasing compensation staff and asked about employee treatment. He then urged that an environment be created so that employees do not suffer disadvantages from the separation of LH's organization. When an expert proposed modular housing, he also told officials to check whether it can actually shorten construction periods.

The government says institutional improvements are under way. At the regular briefing on the 16th, the government said, "48 of the 145 detailed tasks of the Aug. 13 measures have been completed." Groundbreaking in the metropolitan area through the second week of October totaled 99,000 units or more, and it projected that 218,000-235,000 units or more would break ground by the end of the year. The 99,000 units include, besides the 16,200 public housing units, 13,000 newly built purchase units and 17,000 units in private redevelopment projects such as Heukseok District 11, Junggye-bondong and Sillim 2. The government said the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service had designated close-management officers for some 300 residential project financing (PF) sites, and that the prime minister had visited supply sites six times. Kim Yong-su, second deputy minister for state affairs at the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said, "In housing supply, what matters is not stopping at announcing plans but actually supplying the volume promised to the public." Lee also said at the 45th Cabinet meeting on the morning of the same day, "What is especially important is not a declaration or announcement that we will build so many homes, but actual groundbreaking and move-in," and "I hope you will wage a supply blitz by shortening as much as possible the time required from land development through various permits to groundbreaking."

President points to 2022-2025 decline in permits as cause of supply gap

According to the Cheong Wa Dae briefing, Lee pointed out at the Gyeyang site that "a supply gap arose as housing permits declined from 2022 through 2025." He went on to stress, "As now is a time of emergency, such as carrying out expropriation and consultation simultaneously, supply periods must be brought forward."

Under the 2021 plan, main subscription for the Incheon Gyeyang pre-subscription homes was to be in 2023 and move-in in 2025, both within the period the president pointed to. At the same meeting, the president instructed officials to review on-site opinions and proposals immediately and to manage every stage of the project closely. Lee repeatedly stressed, "Unnecessary regulations that hinder the speed of projects must be boldly improved."

In permit statistics, 2022 volume exceeded 2019 and 2020

National permit volumes in the e-Narajipyo indicator "Housing Construction Permit Results" (updated September 30, 2026), managed by the land ministry's Housing Policy Division, were 685,000 units in 2017, 549,000 in 2018, 505,000 in 2019, 466,000 in 2020 and 536,000 in 2021. They were followed by 506,000 in 2022, 426,000 in 2023 and 435,000 in 2024.

The 2022 permit volume of 506,000 units, the year the president named as the starting point of the supply gap, was 1,000 units more than in 2019 (505,000) and 40,000 units more than in 2020 (466,000). The decline from 2021 to 2022 was 30,000 units, and the year with a marked decline was 2023, down 80,000 units from the previous year. Of the eight years from 2017 through 2024, permit volumes fell below 500,000 units in three: 2020, 2023 and 2024. The main text of the indicator's commentary contains no annual figure for 2025, and 2025 results are posted on the same page as monthly attachments. The commentary cites 788,000 units in 2015, when the "new housing market was buoyant," as the all-time high, and notes that permits fell as low as 371,000 units in 2008, right after the global financial crisis.

Lee expresses emotion in Gyeyang, his former constituency from the 21st and 22nd National Assemblies

According to the National Assembly Open Information's list of past lawmakers, Lee was elected to the 21st and 22nd National Assemblies from the Incheon Gyeyang-gu B constituency (two terms, Democratic Party of Korea). The written briefing said Lee recalled at the meeting the days when he commuted from Gyeyang-gu and said it brought back fond memories.

The visit came right after the government made housing a top state affairs priority. At the 49th meeting of senior secretaries on the 15th, Lee named housing, along with jobs and finance, as one of three core social policies. Korea Policy Briefing said the president ordered at the meeting that housing supply be sped up in line with actual demand by life cycle. Lee said, "For the rest of this year, Cheong Wa Dae and the government should make these three core social policies top state affairs priorities and do our utmost to push forward projects in each area." In the briefing on the results of the Cabinet meeting on the 20th, housing stability was defined as "a key foundation for substantive improvement in people's lives." At the same Cabinet meeting, a partial amendment to the enforcement decree of the "Private Rental Housing Act," adding maintenance fees and usage charges or their calculation methods to items subject to lease contract reporting, was placed on the agenda as one of 19 laws and regulations related to state affairs tasks. At the Gyeyang meeting, Lee also asked officials to consider ways to redefine policy terms such as "public rental" and "permanent rental."

Number of first move-in households and deadlines for each instruction not yet released

At the regular briefing on the 16th, First Vice Land Minister Kim Yi-tak said, "What matters to the public is being able to know concretely 'where and when my home will come out,'" and "We will continue to disclose concrete supply schedules and conditions going forward, and show results by quickly supplying quality housing where the public wants it." The government said it would hold the regular briefing twice a month, with the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the land ministry taking turns.

The written briefing said that Lee, while being briefed by the LH project division head, "checked roughly how many households are scheduled to move in at the end of the year." However, Cheong Wa Dae did not disclose that number of households; the reporting deadlines for the reviews of raw land sales, financial incentives and legislation on lawsuit durations; the budget size for financial incentives; or the current construction progress and opening date of the S-BRT, for which the 2021 district plan said related procedures would be pursued in line with the first move-ins.

Sources (KST)

• Cheong Wa Dae · 2026-10-20 · 이재명 대통령, 3기 신도시 현장 시찰 및 주택공급 현장간담회 관련 강유정 수석대변인 서면브리핑 · https://m.korea.kr/briefing/presidentView.do?newsId=148973965&gubun=president&pageIndex=1
• Cheong Wa Dae · 2026-10-20 · 제45회 국무회의 결과 관련 강유정 수석대변인 서면 브리핑 · https://m.korea.kr/briefing/presidentView.do?newsId=148973953&gubun=president&pageIndex=1
• Korea Policy Briefing · 2026-10-20 · 이 대통령, "모든 위협으로부터 국민 일상 지키는 데 국정 역량 집중" · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148973945
• Korea Policy Briefing (1st regular housing supply briefing by the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport) · 2026-10-16 · 연말까지 수도권 주택 21만 8000~23만 5000호 이상 착공 · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148973657
• Korea Policy Briefing · 2026-10-15 · 이 대통령 "주거·일자리·금융, 올해 남은 기간 최우선 국정과제로" · https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148973574
• e-Narajipyo (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Housing Policy Division) · updated 2026-09-30 · 주택건설인허가실적 · https://www.index.go.kr/unify/idx-info.do?idxCd=1229
• Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport press release (posted on the Smart City Comprehensive Portal) · 2021-06-02 · 7월 사전청약 인천계양, 3기 신도시 첫 번째 지구계획 확정 · https://smartcity.go.kr/2021/06/02/7월-사전청약-인천계양-3기-신도시-첫-번째-지구계획-확/
• National Assembly Open Information · accessed 2026-10-22 · 역대 국회의원 현황(ALLNAMEMBER) 이재명 · https://open.assembly.go.kr/portal/openapi/ALLNAMEMBER?Type=json&pIndex=1&pSize=5&NAAS_NM=이재명