Mayor Oh visits, praises Singapore's public housing projects

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, center, visits the Marina One Residences in Singapore on Saturday afternoon. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

SINGAPORE — Seoul may borrow a page from Singapore's playbook by taking a more active role in the provision of housing.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is on a seven-day trip to Singapore and Vietnam. It began on Saturday with a tour of Singapore's public housing projects, including Kampung Admiralty, a public housing development targeting elderly residents, and Punggol town, an eco-town developed from a fishing village.

Oh, who is in his second term in office, made "accompanying the underprivileged" as his key slogan and aims to provide higher-quality homes for the socially marginalized group. The mayor has been publicly expressing deep interest in Singapore's public housing.

Oh first visited the Housing and Development Board's (HDB) My Nice Home Gallery, which is a showflat gallery where various HDB flat layouts can be found.

Around 82 percent of Singaporeans live in apartments built by the HDB. At the same time, the mix of public and private is also distinctive — which goes in line with Oh's emphasis on social integration, the city government said.

Oh showed particular interest in Prime Location Public Housing (PLH), which was first offered last year. It is a model to supply new public housing built in prime, central locations, like the city center, with affordable prices.

"The scheme of the PLH to create and supply public housing among expensive apartments for low-wage workers also goes in line with the policy direction of Seoul city," the mayor said. "Seoul will also work to supply high-quality public houses in the city center and the station areas, and not the outskirts of the city, for newlywed couples, young people and rookies."

Oh then headed to Singapore's Kampung Admiralty experimental retirement village.

The flats, which are meant for the elderly, are the first-of-their-kind in the country. They integrate housing for the elderly with a wide range of social, healthcare and commercial facilities. They also allow older residents to live near their married children so they can visit and working parents can conveniently drop off their kids with their parents.

To cope with the social isolation problem, Oh unveiled his plans to supply a "Gold Village." It is public housing for the elderly with healthcare and commercial facilities together. The city is reviewing a pilot housing project in the Seoul Innovation Park in northern Seoul and in in the Municipal Godeok Nursing Home in eastern Seoul.

"There's a saying in the West that it's best for parents and children to live in a distance that keeps soup warm," the mayor said.

"In fact, Korea also has something like this, but it's very luxurious," he added. "I want to operate a pilot elderly-friendly town but that is affordable and reasonable, where people can live even if it is not they may not be rich."

Another housing type to be adopted is a "three-generation flat" constructed utilizing a special residential layout, which allows for generations of families to live under the same roof while separating the living spaces. It will be built on a trial basis in the Hagye Apartment Complex 5 in northern Seoul, an area about to be redeveloped.

Oh released plans to greatly relax restrictions on the floor area ratio and zoning for the dilapidated Sewoon District in the heart of Seoul, possibly allowing the construction of towers higher than the 123-story Lotte World Tower.

Oh announced the plan at the Marina One Residences in Singapore, and requested from the government a special act on multiple-purpose urban development, including a Seoul-type "white site" plot.

A white site in Singapore is a plot of land where a range of uses is allowed, such as for a combination of commercial, hotel, residential, sports and recreational spaces. The Marina One Residences is a white site.

"If it was subject to controls on the use and region, the aesthetically excellent design like the one we see today would never have been possible," Oh said.

"I hope a similar policy can be applied to places like Yongsan or Sewoon Redevelopment Promotion Area," he added.

Mayor Oh recently announced that he would lift the floor-area ratio in Yongsan District's former train maintenance depot site and promote it as a complex with residential, business and cultural functions. He is pushing for a similar plan in Sewoon Redevelopment Promotion Area in Jongno District, central Seoul.

Singapore's white sites are similar to the "Beyond Zoning" policy proposed by the mayor in his general urban planning draft for 2040, which abolishes the distinction between residential, commercial, industrial and green areas. Yet Beyond Zoning is a broader concept than that of Singapore's, the city government explained, as it eases height and floor-area ratios and encompasses the recognition of special cases in addition to the easing of the zoning regulations.

Such planning allows schools without playgrounds and high-rise vertical gardens to be created in one building, and houses and work offices to be built in the same building, making it possible to commute just by going up and down elevator.

"In order for Seoul to become a top-five global city, a mixed-use development that breaks the limits of the zoning like Singapore is imperative," Oh noted.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]