Putting South Korea’s smallest city on the map

Map of Guri

Guri, Gyeonggi province, has an area of ​​33.29 square kilometers, making it the smallest city in South Korea. It has a population of around 193,000 as of October last year. The map of this city is changing slowly but surely. The size of the projected population of the city by 2035 is around 235,000. This is an increase of more than 20 percent from now.

Guri Mayor Ahn Seung-nam is seeking population growh and regional development through large-scale development projects.

Guri Han Riverside Urban Development Project

The tentatively titled Guri Han Riverside Urban Development Project is a future-oriented smart city project for job creation and revitalization of the local economy in line with the government’s Korean version of the New Deal policy.

As a private investment project, it is aimed to be completed by 2027, with a total of 4 trillion won ($3.3 billion) invested in an area of ​​1.49 million square meters across the city districts of Topyeong-dong and Sutaek-dong.

Guri’s Han Riverside urban development project is gaining momentum with Gyeonggi Province’s final approval in December of last year after deliberation by the province’s Urban Planning Committee for the approval of the “2035 Guri City Master Plan” in August of last year. The plan reflected the development restriction zone (Green Belt, GB) being lifted, which would make the planned land area for urbanization 807,000 square meters.

Considering the GB restrictions being lifted within the project site, it is scheduled to proceed with 727,000 square meters in the first stage and 772,000 in the second stage.

According to the review by Guri Housing and City Development Corporation, the Han Riverside Urban Development Project’s investment feasibility was analyzed to be “suitable.” On Dec. 24, last year, at the 311th special meeting of the Guri City Council, the bill for setting up another corporation for the Guri Housing and City Development Corporation Guri Han Riverside Urban Decelopment Project was approved.

Accordingly, in February of this year, the plan is to establish a special purpose corporation jointly with 15 private consortiums led by the Guri Housing and City Development Corporation to fulfill human resource needs for the company’s operation. After that, the GB will be lifted, and urban development zones will be designated. Land compensation will begin next year, with the goal of completing the first phase of the project by 2027. The estimated cost of the first phase is 1.618 trillion won.

In the second phase of the project, a planned site for urbanization will be reflected through a change of the Guri Urban Basic Plan in 2024. The lifting of the GB and the designation of the urban development zone will be completed. Starting with land compensation in 2026, the goal is to complete the second phase of the project by 2030.
E-commerce logistics complex in Sano-dong area

An e-commerce logistics complex will be promoted as part of the government’s logistics facility innovation plan, and the Korean version of the New Deal project in July 2020.

The direction of the development has been set as a food-tech industry that combines agrifood and advanced technology at a site of around 72,000 square meters in Sano-dong.

The food tech industry is rapidly expanding as one of the most promising industries worldwide, and it is a field of great interest among businesses and academia alike.

The city of Guri has been closely consulting with the government so that the relocation of the wholesale market of agricultural and marine products and the Food Tech Valley construction project can be reflected within the e-commerce logistics complex. By creating jobs through e-commerce logistics, distribution of agricultural and fishery products and cutting-edge food tech industry, the city plans to grow into a distribution hub of the northeastern region of the Greater Seoul area.

Ahn, the mayor, said, “It is expected that a total of over 100,000 jobs will be created, including 92,300 as a result of the Han Riverside urban development project, and 16,000 at the e-commerce innovative logistics complex.”

By Park Joung-kyu and The Korea Herald (kys@heraldcorp.com)