The Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea decided Monday to expand the boundary of an envisioned national park in Yongsan, central Seoul, as the U.S. forces stationed here have kicked off the return process for a major military base.
South Korea is pushing to establish a sprawling park in Yongsan as the United States has initiated the process to vacate the Yongsan Garrison, once home to the headquarters of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), as part of its military base relocation process.
The Korean government approved a plan to include additional lots covering some 600,000 square meters in developing the Yongsan national park during its first meeting of a state-civilian panel on the project.
The move will expand the size of the park to 3.03 million square meters — a little smaller than New York’s Central Park — from the originally proposed size of 2.43 million square meters.
The lots to be further added include the National Museum of Korea, the War Memorial of Korea and an existing park.
“The site of the Yongsan base will be transformed into an ecological park in the heart of the capital,” Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said at the meeting.
“It will become a place where people dream of the future from a place that recalls the country’s tragic history,” he added.
Yongsan, long dominated by foreign forces, including the Japanese during its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, is set to be returned to South Koreans.
USFK established its Yongsan headquarters in July 1957 after the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul. (Yonhap)
The U.S. military has been moving its bases from around the country to a refurbished garrison in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul, since 2017.
The proposed park-building plan failed to include the site hosting the Dragon Hill Lodge hotel in the South Post of the Yongsan base.
The Seoul city government and the Yongsan Ward office have raised the need for the transfer of the hotel, which only U.S. service members can use, to build a national park commensurate with its name.
But the government says related consultations with the United States have already been completed.
South Korea and the U.S. reached a deal in 2014 to allow Washington to retain some facilities at the base, including the nine-story hotel.
The government also said it will open to the public apartments that the U.S. military has rented for more than 30 years, starting in the second half of next year.
The government is considering renovating apartments to serve as facilities such as short-term lodging accommodations and a library.
The administration of former President Roh Moo-hyun first unveiled a plan to build a park at the site of Yongsan Garrison in 2005.
But the project has been protracted amid a yearslong delay in relocating U.S. military bases and a row over decontamination procedures.
(Yonhap)
