LH President Seonghoon Lee: "Housing to Be Supplied at LH Seoul Regional Headquarters Site... Providing Homes for Young People"

Housing Supply Planned for LH Headquarters Site in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu

"Supply Volume To Be Discussed with Government Ministries"

Significant Increase in Dedicated Compensation and Temporary Staff

"Need to Revise Evaluation Criteria Focused on Debt Management"

Sung-Hoon Lee, President of Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), announced, "We will utilize the land of the LH Seoul Regional Headquarters in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, for housing supply." This move is interpreted as his intention to accelerate the pace of supply through a symbolic site that has been central to government-led housing projects such as the first-phase new towns.

At his first press conference since taking office, which was held in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, on August 6, Lee stated, "We have decided to offer the LH Seoul Regional Headquarters, with its 52-year history, as a residential space for the public and for young people."

Lee Sung-hoon, the newly appointed president of Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), is delivering his inauguration speech at the inauguration ceremony held last month on the 6th at the LH headquarters in Jinju, Gyeongnam. LH

This site was previously selected as a candidate for housing supply under the Moon Jae-in administration’s August 4 real estate measures. Although there were plans to build 200 public rental housing units, the project was scrapped due to local opposition. The predecessor of LH, the Korea Housing Corporation, used this site as its headquarters starting in 1973. After relocating its main office to Bundang in 1997, the site became the Seoul Regional Headquarters, where approximately 300 employees currently work.

Regarding the intent to use the Seoul Regional Headquarters as a housing supply site, Lee said, "The government is demanding that we supply more housing units at a faster pace," and explained, "As an implementation agency, LH has found a way to take the lead." He added, "The specific supply volume needs to be discussed with government ministries and licensing agencies."

He also announced plans to recruit a significant number of new personnel to accelerate the pace of housing supply. In particular, he revealed a strategy to substantially increase the number of dedicated compensation staff, as the land compensation process is the most time-consuming part of developing housing sites.

Lee explained, "The procedure that takes the most time before groundbreaking in the housing supply process is compensation," adding, "With compensation cases set to increase significantly, it will be difficult to cope with the current workforce alone." He went on to say, "We will first rapidly expand the number of temporary employees on a large scale, and deploy as many staff with compensation experience as possible to dramatically speed up the process. We are also considering setting higher wages for temporary employees than for regular employees in order to incentivize performance."

LH Seoul Regional Headquarters. LH Website

In response to concerns about LH's increasing financial burden since the suspension of land sales, he expressed concern, stating, "Because we are not selling land, revenue does not come in immediately; capital recovery will be delayed until we begin to receive rental income or proceeds from sales, and debt will increase during this period." However, he added, "We believe that funds can be secured smoothly this year and next year, regardless of the debt ratio."

He also pointed out the need to overhaul the current public enterprise management evaluation criteria, which are concentrated on debt management, in order to speed up housing supply. Lee said that efforts to meet finance-oriented evaluation standards are constraining them in terms of workforce. "At present, the management evaluation system is designed to reduce investment and strictly manage debt, making it difficult to accelerate supply," he stated. "We are discussing with relevant ministries and committees to ensure that organizations actively promoting the housing supply desired by the public are not at a disadvantage in evaluations."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.