Korean Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk has joined Catholic and other community groups in criticizing a Seoul urban redevelopment plan that would see a Catholic church and swathes of its parish demolished. The groups say the project would severely disadvantage the parish and residents, UCA News reports.
“The redevelopment should be fair. The current redevelopment policy gives the ‘haves’ more profits while the ‘have-nots’ suffer economic loss,” Cardinal Cheong said at a special Mass at Kajwa-dong Church in northwestern Seoul.
Under the plan, some 280,000 square meters of Kajwa-dong parish, including the church and its other buildings, would be destroyed to make way for 4,047 apartments.
Seven buildings including the rectory and education center are now facing possible demolition.
The redevelopment is part of the “New Town” project that Seoul City launched in 2002 to convert old areas into new residential and commercial precincts. Various redevelopment associations, legal entities comprising property owners, had asked the city to register their areas as “new towns” for the mass-redevelopment program.
In the case of Kwjwa-dong parish, the Seodaemun-gu district office granted the redevelopment of the area on Sept. 4, 2007 to the relevant redevelopment association.
Under Korean law, if a large majority of homeowners decide to form such a group, it is then considered as representative of all property owners in the area. If someone has objection to a project agreed upon by the association, they are left to defend their rights through individual legal action.
The 4th Gajwa redevelopment association has proposed giving 2,100 square meters of land elsewhere to the parish in compensation for the destruction of its church and other buildings.
It estimates the price of the buildings at some 1.2 billion won (US$1 million) but parish priest Fr Matthew Hong Sung-nam told UCA News the real cost would be much higher. “It will cost 12 billion won (US$10 million) to build a new church. We cannot afford it,” he said.
Cardinal Cheong said that from past experience, “such redevelopment projects have actually driven out more than 70 percent of residents” who cannot afford new homes in the rebuilt area.
“I lived in a 150 square-meter house but in the new development I will have to pay 100 million won for a new 105 square-meter apartment,” a local parishioner also told UCA News.
Catholics’ complaints, however, are not just about the money.
Parishioner Bona Cho Hye-jin told UCA News that the parish was heartbroken about losing its church. “We were baptized here, married and spent our life of faith there. I had hopes that our church could continue to remain where it is.”
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