Residents and a Catholic parish have filed an administrative lawsuit against the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) over the designation of the Seoripul District 2 public housing zone in Umyeon-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul.
Residents of Songdong Village and Sigyuchon, along with Umyeon-dong Catholic Church, said Tuesday that they had filed an administrative lawsuit seeking to overturn MOLIT's designation of the "Seoul Seoripul 2 Public Housing District." On June 11, the ministry designated 193,259 square meters in the Umyeon-dong area as a public housing zone, and residents argue that the measure is unlawful.
The lawsuit was filed by 22 representatives of the parish and village residents, including Baek Woon-cheol, the parish priest of Umyeon-dong Catholic Church; Lee Se-hee, chairman of the Songdong Village emergency response committee; and Choi Hong-gyu, chairman of the Sigyuchon emergency response committee. Attorney Hwang Kyu-boong of JP Law Firm, a firm specializing in public housing expropriation, is representing them. The residents and the parish explained that the case is not a simple development dispute but a public-interest lawsuit involving the legality of the public housing district designation, along with property rights, housing rights, freedom of religion, and the preservation of the environment and cultural heritage.
The lawsuit centers on two issues: procedural illegality and substantive illegality. On procedural grounds, the points of contention are the consultation process with relevant agencies prior to gathering residents' opinions, the composition and deliberation procedures of the environmental impact assessment council, and whether the hearing of residents' opinions was substantive. The residents argue that MOLIT pushed ahead with the district designation without sufficiently listening to voices on the ground.
Regarding substantive illegality, they pointed out that Seoripul District 2 includes greenbelt environmental assessment Grade 1 and 2 land, a wildlife protection area, legally protected species and natural monuments, and rare plants, making it difficult to view the area as the "low conservation-value area" claimed by MOLIT. They also argued that the strategic environmental impact assessment was not carried out thoroughly, as surveys were concentrated only in certain seasons and no nighttime surveys were conducted, while air quality and noise assessments were also carried out under unrealistic conditions.
The residents further argued that, having endured regulations for a long time through the 1971 greenbelt designation, the 1979 designation as a collective settlement district, and the mid-1970s military protection zone designation, forced expropriation now on the grounds of public interest violates the principle of trust protection and constitutes an unlawful measure that infringes on environmental rights, property rights, freedom of residence, freedom of movement, and freedom of religion.
The Songdong Village and Sigyuchon emergency response committees visited MOLIT directly on the first of this month and submitted an application requesting the preservation of the parish and village. The application was accompanied by preservation consent forms from 73 of the total 76 households, or 96% of the household heads (owners), including Umyeon-dong Catholic Church. Five boxes of original signatures from 9,519 people opposing unilateral expropriation, gathered by the priests and congregations of 11 parishes in District 12 of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, were also submitted.
The residents and the parish maintain that they do not oppose the supply of public housing itself. However, they argue that because Seoripul District 2 is an urban ecological axis where legally protected species inhabit and a space that overlaps a buried cultural heritage site and a presumed burial ground of the Yeosan Song clan, full demolition-style development that ignores residents' wishes would only increase conflict, legal disputes, and project delays. They proposed that preservation-type or boundary-adjustment development, which would preserve the parish, village, and key ecological and cultural sections that make up only 1.88% of the total Seoripul district area, is a realistic alternative that could also fulfill the government's supply goals.
The residents and congregants held silent protests in front of the parish and village from April 13 to May 9 this year, and have resumed protests since June 15, when the district designation was announced. From the 13th of this month, they plan to hold silent protests daily from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. in front of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) Seoul Regional Headquarters in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu.
The residents said that Seoripul District 2, in the symbolic space of the Gangnam area, is a site that shows how public housing supply will treat residents' lives, the environment, cultural heritage, and religious spaces, and that how this issue is resolved is a litmus test for whether the current government's rapid public housing supply policy can proceed in a direction that also protects residents' basic rights and the public interest. They then urged MOLIT and LH to reconsider their full expropriation and demolition policy and to enter into serious and substantive consultations with residents over the preservation of the parish and village.
