Questions/Answers

The policy I want to introduce in this submission is ‘Preliminary Project for Seoul Urban Regeneration’. Seoul has experienced compressed growth for the last half century, but old alleys have disappeared due to urban development through total tear downs, and communities were dismantled. In response, Urban Regeneration Project have been implemented in earnest since 2013. The general method of designating Urban Regeneration Areas was local governments submitting applications to participate in the competition and go through evaluation. If selected, the government provides budget support, monitoring and consultation. However, this general method of promoting urban regeneration made it inevitable to implement it rapidly with the public sector at the lead, so it was difficult to form resident consensus. Therefore, the pace of the project slowed down to invest time and effort to promote resident participation from the early stage, and the project was not acknowledged by the residents. To overcome this issue, we promoted a preliminary project that is led by local residents, prior to the Seoul Urban Regeneration Project. The objective of this preliminary project is to enable local communities that are interested in local issues and regional vitalization work to discover regional agendas and execute projects to enhance resident competence, so that residents take the lead in urban regeneration and form consensus. In other words, a prior phase is added before the designation of Urban Regeneration Areas in order to establish governance for the smooth execution of the Urban Regeneration project.

This policy is closely linked to the agenda of area4 ‘Institutional preparedness and response in times of crisis’. Seoul Urban Regeneration aims to build a sustainable community that local residents lead and participate, and create facilities such as playgrounds, libraries, small local parks, residential gardening places. The residents could form ties and relationships in these spaces, and this interaction could transform into cooperation and help in times of sudden crisis or disaster. Thus, this could enhance resident competence by building excellent preliminary governance for urban regeneration and build the regeneration plan with the residents, together.

This policy contributes to SDG target 11.3: “By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.” Through this policy, residents participate as an agent of the project by submitting ideas for urban regeneration, and create mutual learning opportunities on major local agendas by conducting idea camps. Also, promote small-scale regeneration projects to resolve conflict with public-private cooperation, and form reliable relationship to solve local issues. This falls under the UN SDG target of resident participation through a sustainable method and planning integrated human settlement.

Seoul Regeneration Project promotes resident competence and cooperative system between private organizations and enterprises to build autonomous urban regeneration based on local resources. The implementation phases are: ①Governance and planning ②Designation of Urban Regeneration Areas ③Establishment and execution of plan ④Autonomous regeneration. Preliminary governance for understanding and consensus on urban regeneration among residents is established prior to phase② ‘Designation of Urban Regeneration Areas’. This ensures the sustainability of the policy by enhancing autonomy for communities to regenerate the city after the government support ends, based on the governance that was established and reinforced

‘Preliminary Project for Seoul Urban Regeneration’ was promoted in a method of governance from the planning stage. Consensus was formed through discussion with residents on the need for resident competence enhancement prior to the designation of Urban Regeneration Areas. Also, in the process of planning preliminary project, working groups for private experts and private-public policy counsel for urban regeneration was operated to actively listen to suggestions from experts and make decision through discussion. The project adopted a competition method, allowing residents' meetings and urban regeneration support groups to simultaneously apply for preliminary projects, thereby creating conditions for residents' meetings and expert groups to lead the project. In order to put the residents, not the public sector, in the lead, Briefing sessions about the ‘Urban Regeneration Support Center’, roundtables and project consulting were held for residents. In this regard, as of April 2016, resident meetings and Urban Regeneration Support Centers in 47 communities applied for the preliminary project.

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The goal of this policy, prior to the start of the Urban Regeneration Project, is to build consensus on the need to secure autonomy and sustainability of urban regeneration by residents by promoting resident participation and vitalizing communities. Seoul is the first city in South Korea to make preliminary project mandatory. Identifying local agenda and promoting resident competence enhancement projects for urban regeneration is directly beneficial for resident members of communities that are subject to the preliminary project.

Preliminary project of Seoul Urban Regeneration targets regions that can develop local economy and create jobs by becoming a center base, regions that can generate historical, cultural, artistic value, regions that need to improve aging residential environment and sustain community. The preliminary projects at regions that need sustained community and improvement in living conditions, are led by the local residents, not by the public sector, by applying and running in the idea competition. The goal of the project and application by residents is to raise awareness of the need for preliminary project for urban regeneration among residents and increase the participation rate of residents with various interests and needs in the process of conducting the project. In this regard, to freely share various opinions on regeneration projects and identify agendas in various fields in the future. Residential communities that applied for the preliminary project conduct information sessions for residents, public relations, education, research on local resources, identification of local agendas, and organization of resident groups. The preliminary project can be divided into 5 phases. First, designate candidate sites, operate idea camps focused on workshops and consulting, and promote small-scale urban regeneration projects for each candidate site. A performance sharing session will follow where progress and results will be shared. Lastly, Urban Regeneration Areas are designated through evaluation by experts on governance establishment and urban regeneration planning. From the start of the project, various stakeholders such as ward offices, city halls, residents, etc. are involved, so that the basis for building integrated governance can be established immediately after designating Urban Regeneration Areas in the future. Also, experts of various fields such as jobs, start-ups, and culture and arts provide consulting in idea camps to enhance realization and effectiveness of regeneration projects in each candidate site.

The resident participation level was low at first, since residents felt hesitant to apply for a public project. However, we utilized activists with many governance related experience as a bridge to draw interest from residents naturally, and enhanced the participation level of activists and residents in the small-scale project competition as a result.

The policy has innovative features that are differentiated from existing urban projects. Method of establishing preliminary governance is adopted from the early planning, and project for reinforcing resident competence is carried out before the designation of Urban Regeneration Areas. Public-private policy council for urban regeneration is operated, so expert opinions can be heard and discussed in navigating the direction of urban regeneration. Thus, residents promote projects in the preparatory phase, and the performance in that phase is reflected in urban regeneration policies, which makes the policy an innovative public-private governance model.

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This kind of candidate site phase prior to the project cut the time spent on early planning for urban regeneration project, and enhanced overall participation rate of residents. This pilot project of Seoul has been adopted as a central government policy and has spread nationwide. Also, starting from this year, the implementation of this preliminary phase has been stipulated for the government’s urban regeneration project competition. Educational courses that teach Seoul Regeneration Project to public officials in other local governments. In addition, Other Asian countries are showing interest in Seoul urban regeneration policies. It was awarded the Lee Kuan-Yu Award in 2018, and strengthened cooperative systems among cities around the world through the Urban Regeneration Seoul International Conference in 2018 and 2020.

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Seoul Metropolitan Government provides financial assistance ranging from 50,000,000 KRW ~ 150,000,000KRW for each sites

Answered in another question.

Yes

SH Urban Research & Insight and surveys on participants.

Overall satisfaction on idea camps, level of help from the consulting team of experts, evaluation on the various fields of consulting, etc.

According to the survey, 78% answered that were satisfied with idea camps and 62% answered that consulting was helpful. The replies on various fields of consulting that was conducted were positive, especially the fields of commercial district/regional vitalization, space management, culture/festivals. Based on these evaluation results, the positive effect of building partnership through preliminary project before designating Urban Regeneration Areas was confirmed. Also, it was helpful in concretizing regeneration plans created in idea camps and establishing regional governance systematically. Consulting focused on core projects and small-scale regeneration projects was helpful for performance. A conclusion that the operation method of increasing continuity in terms of consulting was drawn.

Urban regeneration is planned and financially supported by Seoul, a public sector, and districts discover core projects and play the role of local governance. Also, work as a bridge between public sector and local residents, and a consulting team of experts that help discover concrete projects and governance is formed. First, The Seoul Institute as an urban regeneration policy support institution serves the role of professional advisory expert and SH Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation provides advise on concrete project implementation. Also, experts in core projects, economic fields with experienced in local governance establishment, regional vitalization, festivals and governance participate in the consulting team.

Preliminary project for Seoul urban regeneration is focused on growth and sharing of candidate sites, and has a single consistent promotion process that covers editing plans through continuous consulting after designating candidate sites, and promoting urban regeneration projects that actual communities need. The goal is initiative for core themes of urban regeneration and establishing governance. Various agents such as local residents, merchants, districts, Seoul, experts, local organizations, institutions participated. Therefore, the time spent on establishing early governance based on integrated governance after the designation of Urban Regeneration Areas was reduced, and the basis for promoting Urban Regeneration at a fast pace was built.

Urban regeneration is based on resident participation. Therefore, whether the policy will fail or succeed depends on residents’ will to participate and competence. We started to put effort in resident participation and governance establishment in 2015, when the Urban Regeneration policy was first adopted. As a result, there was positive change in the region, but there were issues with prolonged time of implementation and the lack of acknowledgement from ordinary residents. Also, unnecessary administrative expenses were incurred as some projects were lost in the process of forming resident governance. In order to improve this, we newly established the phase of project transfer and phase of candidate site for the Urban Regeneration project. As a result, it was possible to identify local agendas at the candidate site phase, and to derive sufficient drive for resident participation. It had the effect of reducing time spent in early planning once the main project of Urban Regeneration begun. In addition, level of citizen awareness increased, since the project was concretized in certain candidate sites and was ready for execution. The effect spread not only in Seoul, but nationwide, so the central government stipulated the implementation of preliminary phase before main project.