Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon urges housing supply, disputes opposition claims

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon told a public housing forum that increasing the supply of apartments and non‑apartment units is the only way to stabilise the market, rejecting the government’s tax‑focused reforms. He highlighted a city‑commissioned report that attributes Seoul’s chronic housing shortage to past deregulation of redevelopment zones, which halted new projects and created a structural “supply cliff”. The report shows that completed redevelopment and reconstruction projects over the last three years added only modest net housing units, while the city’s target of 66,000 new homes by 2025 has fallen far short of actual deliveries. Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Nam‑geun and other opposition figures blamed the mayor and the city administration for the shortfall, accusing them of mismanaging budgets and failing to execute public‑housing projects. Oh Se-hoon countered that the Democratic Party’s past decision to halt 389 redevelopment projects under former mayor Park Won‑sun caused the loss of roughly 430,000 potential units, and he rejected the opposition’s “supply‑cliff” narrative as a political tactic.