Seoul to massively increase city's parks and green spaces

Social Affairs

Published: 24 May. 2023, 16:32

Seoul to massively increase city's parks and green spaces

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon outlines the city’s “Garden City Seoul” initiative to reporters Wednesday at City Hall during a briefing. [YONHAP]

More parks and public gardens will be coming to Seoul over the next three years, the city’s mayor announced Wednesday.

In a briefing at City Hall, Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Seoul Metropolitan Government will spend nearly 680 billion won ($516.3 million) until 2026 to create more green spaces in the jam-packed capital, in part by purchasing land and designing parks and gardens on them.

The ultimate goal, said Oh, will be to allow every citizen in Seoul to live within a five-minute distance from a green space.

“[Seoul] citizens are going through a lot with climate change, the climate crisis, fine dust and yellow dust from China and heat waves,” said Oh. “But when people look at the color green, they tend to relax. There’s an inherent relationship between quality of life and green spaces.”

By maximizing Seoul’s green spaces, citizens’ quality of life will hopefully improve, stressed Oh.

Under plans for the “Garden City Seoul” initiative outlined by the metropolitan government office, the capital will create a large garden at the Songhyeon-dong site in downtown Seoul next to a museum that will be filled with a vast collection of art pieces donated by the family of late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

A garden will also be created at the newly opened Yongsan Park near the presidential office in central Seoul. The garden at Yongsan Park will largely be split into two sections: one showcasing various garden designs of different countries, and the other showcasing the gardening work of citizens.

An artist’s rendition of Seoul Plaza in downtown Seoul after the city carries out its plan to plant pine trees in the area. [SEOUL METROPOLITAN GOVERNMENT]

The so-called Magok-3 district cultural facility site in Gangseo District, western Seoul will be connected with the nearby Seoul Botanic Park with a path lined with wildflowers.

Sections of Yeongdong-daero, Gukhoe-daero and Gyeongbu Expressway will be transformed into a garden as well.

This year’s Seoul Garden Show will run for two months at Haneul Park in Mapo District, western Seoul. Next year, the city government said it was planning to host the garden show for six months at Ttukseom Hangang Park in Gwangjin District, eastern Seoul, and make it an “international” garden show exhibiting garden designs from across the world.

A project called “Seoul Green Path” will focus on connecting the city’s green spaces with flowers, trees and grass in between.

Flowers will be planted from Gwanghwamun in downtown Seoul to Nodeul Island in Yongsan District, all the way to Noryangjin-dong in Dongjak District, southern Seoul.

Paths connecting subway station exits to the Seoul Dulle-gil trail courses will be increased from the current 17 to 49.

Pine trees will be planted around Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall, allowing visitors to cool in the shade.

Grass will be planted along a side of Deoksugung Palace in downtown Seoul, and campsites will be created around the city’s mountains.

On a related note, the city government announced Wednesday that it will relax the floor area ratio regulations for the so-called financial-specific development promotion zone in eastern Yeouido, western Seoul. Under the new regulations, the floor area ratio can be increased up to 1,000 percent, and up to 1,200 percent if the buildings adopt environmentally friendly designs.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]