Defense ministry eases Goyang flight-safety zone after air base reclassified

The defense ministry said it is lifting or relaxing development restrictions across 29.16 million square meters as it narrows the flight-safety zones tied to G-113 air base in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, after reclassifying the site from a support air operations base to a helicopter-only operations base.

The change removes G-113 from the list of support air operations bases in the enforcement decree of the Military Bases and Military Installations Protection Act and adds it to the helicopter-only category, cutting the designated range of the flight-safety zones where building and construction are restricted.

The reclassification was intended to reduce the scope of the flight-safety zones, which had restricted building and construction for residents because G-113's value as a support air operations base had fallen, according to the Ministry of Government Legislation.

Flight-safety zones account for 20.515 million square meters of the total, spread across four areas — Mapo and Eunpyeong districts in Seoul, Goyang in Gyeonggi Province and Sejong City. The released area is about ten times the size of Yeouido.

In Goyang, 770,000 square meters of restricted protection zone will be freed to secure development conditions for the Techno Valley project and public housing.

A flight-safety zone is the area around an air base where construction height and use are limited. The base sits in Goyang, north of Seoul.