[Edaily Reporter LEE JUNGHYUN ] The government’s ambitious “Housing Supply Plan,” unveiled with the aim of resolving Seoul’s chronic housing shortage, has hit a snag in the form of public backlash. This is because public opposition is boiling over in every area designated as a candidate for new residential development sites, including Yongsan, Taereung, Gwacheon, and Yeomchang. The so-called “supply-at-all-costs” approach—which forces local residents to make sacrifices in the name of housing supply—appears to be facing a backlash.

The scale of the backlash is too significant to be dismissed as mere local self-interest. On the 28th, “Citizens United to Protect Green Taereung” and “Nowon Residents’ Alliance for Truth” the “Gwacheon Racecourse Relocation Emergency Response Committee” (Emergency Committee), and the “Residents’ Group to Protect the Yongsan International Business District and Yongsan Park”—gathered in front of the National Assembly building in Yeouido, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, to hold a solidarity rally and demand the complete withdrawal of large-scale residential development plans for Taereung Golf Course (CC), the Gwacheon Racecourse, and Yongsan Park.

They drew a mustache on a portrait of President Lee Jae-myung, denouncing him as an “arrogant ruler,” and marched with a funeral bier to the Democratic Party of Korea headquarters in Yeouido. They also held signs bearing radical slogans such as “Defend Gwacheon Racecourse Park at All Costs,” “Vigorously Oppose Housing Policies That Destroy Green Spaces,” “Go Ahead and Build on the Corpses of Gwacheon Citizens,” “Let’s Protect Green Taereung,” “Failing at Real Estate Policy, Taking It Out on Taereung?” and “Vigorously Oppose the Destruction of Yongsan Park.” Moving beyond resistance in individual regions, various task forces are uniting to escalate their struggle against the government.

Resistance from local residents centered on the government’s proposed housing supply sites has been ongoing. Regarding the Yongsan Park site—the epicenter of the controversy—Yongsan District residents, who had hoped for the creation of a pristine ecological park, have already launched organized collective actions, such as a campaign to send condolence wreaths. With even local politicians from the opposition party stepping to the forefront in response to residents’ voices, the Yongsan site issue is escalating beyond a mere real estate matter into a political proxy battle between the ruling and opposition parties.

The atmosphere in Taereung (Nowon-gu), where both the head of the local government and the district’s National Assembly member belong to the ruling party, is also tense. Local residents are exerting strong pressure by sending “mass protest text messages”—so-called “text message bombs”—to the politicians they elected, as well as filing collective complaints with the district office and other agencies. With over 1,000 people gathering in open chat rooms on platforms like KakaoTalk to voice their opposition, it is difficult to ignore them. In the local political arena, this number represents a bloc large enough to sway election outcomes.

Yeomchang-dong, where the scale of development is relatively small, is no exception. Various forms of resistance are erupting everywhere, such as residents voluntarily distributing flyers at major apartment complexes.

As opposition grows louder, the mayor appears to be questioning the effectiveness of the government’s housing supply measures. Even after a site is selected, housing supply projects face numerous hurdles—such as district designation, land compensation, and local government permits—and the more intense the resident backlash, the more the start of construction is delayed, potentially reducing the actual impact of the supply.

What is more frightening than the housing crisis is the anger of the public. Experts warn that if consent cannot be secured from local residents and municipalities, the project could drift indefinitely. This means that even if the government pushes a “supply timeline” based on numbers and emphasizes the necessity of housing supply, the measures will be ineffective without on-the-ground consent.