Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon on the 6th called on President Lee Jae-myung to acknowledge that his housing policy has failed and change course, saying that "repeatedly declaring moral victory while ignoring even the facts in front of you does not change the results of a policy."
Oh made the remarks in a post on his Facebook page titled "People's lives are too desperate for us to just watch the president's 'moral victory,'" writing that "as I read the president's several posts on real estate on social media yesterday, I even came to think that it would be meaningless to try to persuade him any further."
Oh's post was a rebuttal to a series of real estate posts Lee had published on social media the previous day, in which the president credited the recent increase in housing permits and construction starts in Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area to the government's efforts to expand supply. Lee said housing permits and construction starts in Seoul through August of this year had each risen more than 40% from the same period last year, describing the figures as evidence that the government's push for speed was producing results.
Lee also replied to posts criticizing the government's housing policy by asking critics to "be patient and wait just a little longer," urging them to judge the policy by its results. The president described housing as a structural problem that has persisted for decades, saying that every democratic administration had worked to curb speculation but had been unable to see necessary reforms through to the end in the face of resistance and backlash.
Oh directly disputed Lee's view that the recent rise in housing permits and construction starts in Seoul is an achievement of the current administration. "It takes more than 10 years on average from the formation of a redevelopment association to the start of construction," he wrote. "Does the president have some kind of magic lamp that can produce permits and construction starts in a single year?"
The recent improvement in supply indicators, Oh argued, is the result of years of work by the Seoul Metropolitan Government to normalize redevelopment and rebuilding projects. He said that 389 projects covering 430,000 homes were canceled during the tenure of former Mayor Park Won-soon, but that the city subsequently designated 214 new project sites and improved their financial viability, creating the conditions for permits and construction starts. He also noted that redevelopment and rebuilding projects accounting for about 15,000 homes broke ground last year, with a target of 30,000 homes this year and 85,000 homes across 85 districts by 2028.
Oh also took issue with Lee's framing of housing as a conflict between conservative and progressive administrations. Responding to Lee's remark that "setting aside conservative governments, which encourage real estate speculation, every democratic government has worked to curb it," Oh said the president "has not moved a single step away from viewing real estate through ideology rather than market principles."
Rather than focusing on curbing speculation, Oh argued, the government should acknowledge current market conditions and the side effects of its policies and change direction. He said it was inappropriate to ask people struggling in the jeonse (a Korean lease system requiring a large lump-sum deposit instead of monthly rent) and monthly rent markets to wait, adding that "the louder the slogans about crushing speculators grow, and the more the policy is packaged as 'reform,' the more it means this government's real estate policy is heading toward failure."
He called for a review of the past year of housing policy from square one. "Admitting failure is not defeat," Oh said. "Changing your thinking and changing your policy in the face of the people's suffering — that is the true courage a head of state can show."
