"What Kind of Speed-up Policy?"... Oh Sehoon Rebuts President Lee's Claim of Surging Housing Permits

"Seoul Restored Redevelopment Projects Around the Clock After Park Won-soon Era"

"Honestly Admit Real Estate Policy Failures"

When President Lee Jaemyung mentioned that the government's "speed-up policy" had resulted in a rise in housing permitting performance in Seoul, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon pushed back, asking, "What kind of speed-up is the government claiming?"

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon visited the first project site of the Moa Housing on the 28th, touring the residents and individual units at Central I-Park near Gangbyeon Station in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. 2026.9.28. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung

On the 6th, through his Facebook account, Mayor Oh responded, "The reason permit approvals and construction starts began to come in sequentially starting this year is actually because the Seoul Metropolitan Government has worked around the clock to restore redevelopment projects that had been uprooted and essentially eliminated with policy 'herbicides' during Mayor Park Won-soon's term."

The previous day, President Lee wrote on X, "Due to the government's accelerated efforts, housing permits in the Seoul metropolitan area are surging." According to his post, in August, the number of housing permits in Seoul was 11,306 units, representing a nearly sevenfold increase compared to the same month last year.

Mayor Oh further explained, "During Mayor Park's tenure, 389 redevelopment sites totaling 430,000 housing units were canceled. However, we designated 214 new sites, improved their business viability, and did everything possible to create conditions for timely permitting and construction starts." He continued, "As a result, last year alone, about 15,000 units broke ground as part of redevelopment projects, and this year, our goal is to begin construction on 30,000 units. By 2028, we plan to initiate construction in 85 districts, totaling 85,000 units."

Meanwhile, President Lee also remarked, "Excluding conservative governments that have encouraged real estate speculation, every democratic administration has tried to curb speculation, but failed to deliver the results they aimed for. Suppressing speculation and stabilizing real estate prices are both national imperatives and extremely difficult tasks, but they are not impossible."

To this, Mayor Oh countered, "Blaming rising housing prices on speculators, calling any criticism of policy side effects resistance from vested interests, and dismissing the public's pain as mere backlash to necessary reforms—all of these reflect the president's narrow-minded perspective and suggest there is little hope going forward. The more loudly you proclaim the need to crack down on speculators and brandish your policies as 'reform,' the clearer it becomes that this administration's real estate strategy is headed for failure."

In closing, Mayor Oh called on President Lee to "honestly admit to the real estate policy failures of the past year, take the courageous step of declaring a return to square one, and publicly commit to correcting the misguided course. Changing your thinking and altering policies in the face of public suffering—that is the true courage that a head of state must show."

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