Residents of Jeongneung-gol say, ‘We are sad to lose our community due to redevelopment’

A resident of Jeongneung-gol, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, walks through an alley in the village on July 31.

If you take the bus No. 143 running between Gangnam and Gangbuk, Seoul, get off at the last stop of Jeongneung in Seongbuk-gu, and cross the Jeongneungcheon Stream, you will find a village called “Jeongneung-gol.” It is a neighborhood of old houses at the foot of Bukhansan Mountain. The village was created in the 1960s and 1970s when people who were displaced by the demolition of unauthorized houses in the Cheonggyecheon area began to move in.

On July 31, Jeongneung-gol looked like a neighborhood of empty houses. There were houses with broken windows and garbage piled up in the yard. But as I wandered through the maze of narrow alleys, there was a sign of habitation. Clothes hanging on clotheslines, briquettes scattered in front of walls, and a pink mural that has just been painted…

Han Min-kyung (59) is a resident of Jeongneung-gol who has been at the forefront of the village's revitalization. “Someone must have moved out again,” said Han, who met at the entrance of the village. ”As the relocation plan starts, there are one or two people who move out.” She said she was worried if she should move out soon, too.

Jeongneung-gol will be redeveloped into luxury townhouses. According to the Jeongneung-gol District Housing Redevelopment and Maintenance Project Association, 1,417 townhouses with four floors above ground and two floors below ground will be built on an area of 203,965 square meters. To this end, the association set the migration period from this month to January next year. While association members with stakes in the land will be able to return after the townhouses are completed, tenants like Han will have to leave to find a new place to live. There are an estimated 405 tenants in the village.

Han said she did not know where to go. It was 17 years ago that she and her husband moved into a single room of about 5 square meters in a green gated house in the middle of Jeongneung-gol. She works as a cleaning worker at a nearby university, and her workplace and friends are all in the neighborhood. Since she has to leave for work early in the morning, she worries that if she moves too far away from Jeongneung-gol, she will lose her job. “If you don't have clothes, you can buy them, but if you don't have a house, you have nowhere to go,” Han said, adding, ”It's not easy to leave after getting old. I just pack clothes and household items every day because I’m so anxious.”

Residents said they had heard about the redevelopment for more than 30 years, so they thought it would be just a rumor again this time. Looking at the redevelopment notices posted everywhere at the entrance of the village, Mr. A, in his 70s, said, "It's been a long time since I saw those stickers. I guess it's because there are a lot of people saying that it is possible to redevelop or not."

It's not that residents do not recognize the need for redevelopment because the village is in such a dilapidated state. “It's so old that it doesn't even have running water, so it should be redeveloped. But what's the point if all the people who used to live here are kicked out and the neighborhood disappears?” Ms. Han said.

Kim Young-ri (55), who lives in a house with a large yard opposite the Han’s house, is among the younger generation of the native people. Kim said words like a “poor hillside village” and a “slum” do not fully describe life in Jeongneung-gol. “Even if you live in a house that looks like an old small room, there are people who sweep and clean the space and create a community,” Kim said. ”It's sad that people who buy houses for speculative purposes say that Jeongneung-gol should be wiped out by just looking at the abandoned houses."

There are many leafy lilac trees in Jeongneung-gol. It is not known whether the trees will still be there this time next year. “There are no lilac trees this thick anywhere else in Seoul, and with the redevelopment, they'll all be gone,” Han said, pointing to a tree that has grown high in the sky against the wall.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.